Husserls Ideas on a Pure Phenomenology and on a

Phenomenological Philosophy
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was a German philosopher who was
born in Prossnitz, Moravia. He taught philosophy at the
universities of Halle, Gttingen, and Freiburg. Martin Heidegger
(1889-1976) was among his students and succeeded him as
professor of philosophy at Freiburg after his retirement. Husserl
had an important influence on Heidegger, on existential
phenomenology, and on the philosophy of mind.
Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1931) defines
phenomenology as a descriptive analysis of the essence of pure
consciousness. Husserl defines pure or transcendental
phenomenology as an a priori (or eidectic) science (a science of
essential being). He distinguishes between pure phenomenology
and empirical psychology (and between transcendental and
psychological subjectivity), saying that phenomenology is a
science of essences, while psychology is a science of the facts of
experience. He criticizes "psychologism" (the theory that
psychological analysis may be used as a method of resolving
philosophical problems), and he says that only an a priori science
can define the essential nature of being.
The Ideas are divided into four sections: (1) "The Nature and
Knowledge of Essential Being," (2) "The Fundamental
Phenomenological Outlook," (3) "Procedure of Pure
Phenomenology In Respect of Methods and Problems," and (4)
"Reason and Reality." The first section describes how the realm of
essence differs from the realm of facts. The second section
describes how phenomenological reduction may be used as a
method of philosophical inquiry. The third section describes how
noesis and noema may be defined as phases of intentionality. The
fourth section describes the relation between consciousness and
noematic meaning.
Husserl distinguishes between phenomenology as a science of pure
consciousness and psychology as a science of empirical facts. For
Husserl, the realm of pure consciousness is distinct from the realm
of real experience. Husserl explains that phenomenology is a
theory of pure phenomena, and that it is not a theory of actual
experiences (or of actual facts or realities).
According to Husserl, essential being must be distinguished from
actual existence, just as the pure ego must be distinguished from
the psychological ego. Essences are non-real, while facts are real.
The realm of transcendentally reduced phenomena is non-real,
while the realm of actual experience is real. Thus,
phenomenological reduction leads from knowledge of the
essentially real to knowledge of the essentially non-real.
Phenomenological reduction is a process of defining the pure
essence of a psychological phenomenon. It is a process whereby
empirical subjectivity is suspended, so that pure consciousness
may be defined in its essential and absolute being. This is
accomplished by a method of "bracketing" empirical data away
from consideration. "Bracketing" empirical data away from further
investigation leaves pure consciousness, pure phenomena, and the
pure ego as the residue of phenomenological reduction.
Phenomenological reduction is also a method of bracketing
empirical intuitions away from philosophical inquiry, by refraining
from making judgments upon them. Husserl uses the term
epoche(Greek, for "a cessation") to refer to this suspension of
judgment regarding the true nature of reality. Bracketed judgment
is an epoche or suspension of inquiry, which places in brackets
whatever facts belong to essential being.
Bracketing is also a neutralization of belief. "Doxic positing" (the
positing of belief) may be actual or potential. Doxic positing may
occur in every kind of consciousness, because every consciousness
may actually or potentially posit something about being.
Facts or realities are the objective data of empirical intution, says
Husserl, but essences are the objective data of essential intuition.
Empirical intuition may lead to essential intuition (or essential
insight), which may be adequate or inadequate in terms of its
clearness and distinctness. Empirical or non-empirical objects may
have varying degrees of intuitability, and empirical or non-
empirical intuitions may vary in their clearness and distinctness.
Non-empirical intuitions may apprehend objects that are produced
by fantasy or imagination.
Husserl describes consciousness as intentional insofar as it refers
to, or is directed at, an object. Intentionality is a property of
directedness toward an object. Consciousness may have intentional
and non-intentional phases, but intentionality is the property that
gives consciousness its objective meaning.
The cogito ("I think") is the principle of the pure ego. The pure ego
performs acts of consciousness (cogitations) that may be
immanently or transcendently directed. Immanently directed acts
of consciousness refer to objects that are within the same ego or
that belong to the same stream of consciousness. Transcendently
directed acts of consciousness refer to objects that are outside the
ego or that belong to a different stream of consciousness. The
objects of consciousness (cogitata) are the embodied or
unembodied things that are perceived and consciously experienced.
The difference between immanent and transcendent perception
reflects the difference between being as experience and being as
thing.1 Things as they exist in themselves cannot be perceived
immanently, and they can only be perceived transcendently. The
difference between immanent and transcendent perception also
reflects the difference in the way in which things are given and
presented to consciousness. Givenness may be adequate or
inadequate in terms of its clearness and distinctness, and in terms
of its intuitability.
Immanently perceived objects have an absolute being insofar as
their existence is logically necessary. The existence of
transcendently perceived objects is not logically necessary, insofar
as their existence is not proved by the being of conciousness itself.
Consciousness itself is absolute being, but the spatial-temporal
world is merely phenomenal being.
Husserl emphasizes that phenomenology is concerned with the
essence of whatever is immanent in consciousness, and that it is
concerned with describing immanent essences. To confuse the
essences of things with the mental representations of those
essences is to confuse the aims of phenomenology and psychology.
Phenomenology is a descriptive analysis of being as consciousness,
while psychology is a descriptive analysis of being as reality. The
difference between being as consciousness and being as reality is
also the difference between transcendental and transcendent being.
Every actual cogito has an intentional object (and is a mode of
thinking about something). The cogito itself may become a
cogitatum if the principle that "I think" becomes an object of
consciousness. Thus, in the cogito, the act of thinking may become
an intentional object. However, in contrast to the Cartesian
principle that "I think, therefore I am" (cogito ergo sum), the
phenomenologically reduced cogito is a suspension of judgment
about whether "I am" or whether "I exist." The
phenomenologically reduced cogito is a suspension of judgment
about the question of whether thinking implies existence. Thus,
phenomenology examines the cogito as a pure intuition, and as an
act of pure consciousness.
Husserl describes noesis and noema as two phases of intentionality.
Noesis is the process of cogitation, while the noemata (or cogitata)
are that which is cogitated. Every intentional experience has a
noetic (real) phase and a noematic (non-real) phase. Every noetic
phase of consciousness corresponds to a noematic phase of
consciousness. Noesis is a process of reasoning that assigns
meaning to intentional objects. Both noesis and noema may be
sources of objective meaning. The noetic meaning of transcendent
objects is discoverable by reason, while the noematic meaning of
immanent objects is discoverable by pure intuition. Noetic
meaning is transcendent, while noematic meaning is immanent.
Thus, noesis and noema correspond respectively to experience and
essence.

FOOTNOTES
1Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure
Phenomenology, translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson (London:
George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1931), p. 133.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure
Phenomenology. Translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson. London:
George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1931.
...................

What is Existential-Phenomenology?
What is Phenomenology?
"As good a place to begin as any is the meaning of the term
phenomenology itself. It is derived from the two Greek words:
phainomenon (an "appearance") and logos ("reason" or "word,"
hence a "reasoned inquiry"). Phenomenology is indeed a reasoned
inquiry which discovers the inherent essences of appearances. But
what is an appearance? The answer to this question leads to one of
the major themes of phenomenology: an appearance is anything of
which one is conscious. Anything at all which appears to
consciousness is a legitimate area of philosophical investigation.
Moreover, an appearance is a manifestation of the essence of that
of which it is the appearance. Surprising as it may sound, other
philosophic points of view have refused to make this move."
--David Stewart & Algis Mickunas, Exploring Phenomenology, p.
3
"...one can characterize phenomenological philosophy as centering
on the following basic themes: a return to the traditional tasks of
philosophy, the search for a philosophy without presuppositions,
the intentionality of consciousness, and the refusal of the subject-
object dichotomy."
--David Stewart & Algis Mickunas, Exploring Phenomenology, p.
5
"For Husserl, phenomenology was a discipline that attempts to
describe what is given to us in experience without obscuring
preconceptions or hypothetical speculations; his motto was 'to the
things themselves'--rather than to the prefabricated conceptions we
put in their place. As Husserl saw it, this attempt offered the only
way out of the impasse into which philosophy had run at the end of
the nineteenth century when the realists, who affirmed the
independent existence of the object, and the idealists, who affirmed
the priority of the subject, had settled down into a stalemated war.
Instead of making intellectual speculations about the whole of
reality, philosophy must turn, Husserl declared, to a pure
description of what is. In taking this position Husserl became the
most influential force not only upon Heidegger but upon the whole
generation of German philosophers who came to maturity about
the time of the First World War."
--William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential
Philosophy, pp. 190-191
"...Husserl's logic is one bound to the immediacy of all experience
itself insofar as phenomena are understood as givens in their
immediate and irreducible presentative force. Most simply, Husserl
is after the formal qualities of the concrete reality which human
beings recognize as their experience, but from here means the
essential immanent in the particular: the truth of the given. The
history of Husserl's development as a philosopher supports the
thesis that throughout his life he was, at various levels, searching
for an architectonic of thought . . . which would express and
uncover the specificity of the world. If the term 'logic' be
understood in its philosophic sense as a grounding discipline for all
reflection, then phenomenology as a logic treats the genesis and
development of phenomena from their most primordial roots in
prereflective consciousness to their most reflectively sophisticated
exemplification in science."
--Maurice Natanson, "Phenomenology and the Social Sciences," In
M. Natanson (Ed.), Phenomenology and the Social Sciences,
Volume 1, pp. 4-5
"Phenomenology is a science of 'beginnings.' The genuine beginner
is an adept, not a novice. To begin, in this sense, is to start from the
primordial grounds of evidence, from onself as the center (not the
sum) of philosophical experience. Such self-centeredness is the
opposite of philosophic hubris; it is a confession of humility: the
admission that, unless the inquirer has turned to himself in full
awareness of his life, he cannot claim to have sought, let alone
found, the truth. . .
The genuine beginner is, then, the most sophisticated of all
thinkers, for, beyond honoring the Socratic injunction, he is
unwilling to admit as taken for granted that which impinges most
heavily on his outlook as a man in the world: the root assumption
that, though we may be ignorant of philosophic truth, we are, after
all, beings in a real world in which philosophic doubt emerges as
something worth bothering about."
--Maurice Natanson, "Phenomenology and the Social Sciences," In
M. Natanson (Ed.), Phenomenology and the Social Sciences,
Volume 1, p. 6-8
". . .one learned what phenomenology is step by step, through
reading, discussion, and reflection ... What is needed is rather
simple: to learn what is mean by the natural attitude, to
practiceepoche, to attempt descriptions of presentations without
prejudicing the results by taking for granted the history, causality,
intersubjectivity, and value we ordinarily associate with our
experience, and to examine with absolute care the fabric of the
world of daily life so that we may grasp its source and its
direction . . .
There is a legitimate sense in which it is necesary to say that one
must become a phenomenologist in order to comprehend
phenomenology."
--Maurice Natanson, "Phenomenology and the Social Sciences," In
M. Natanson (Ed.), Phenomenology and the Social Sciences,
Volume 1, pp. p. 8
". . . at the end of his career, Husserl admitted that the first result of
reflection is to bring us back into the presence of the world as wel
lived it before our reflection began (Lebenswelt)."
--Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Phenomenology and the Sciences of
Man," In M. Natanson (Ed.), Phenomenology and the Social
Sciences, Volume 1, p. 54
"During the whole career of Husserl . . . the struggle is on two
fronts. On the one hand it is a struggle against psychologism and
historicism, in so far as they reduce the life of man to a mere result
of external conditions acting on him and see the philosophizing
person as entirely determined from the outside, lacking any contact
with his own thought and therefore destined to skepticism. But on
the other hand, it is also a struggle against logicism, in so far as
this is attempting to arrange for us an access to the truth lacking
any contact with contingent experience. Husserl is seeking to
reaffirm rationality at the level of experience, without sacrificing
the vast variety that it includes and accepting all the processes of
conditioning which psychology, sociology, and history reveal. It is
a question of finding a method which will enable us to think at the
same time of the externality which is the principle of the sciences
of man and of the internality which is the condition of philosophy,
of the contingencies without which there is no situation as well as
of the rational certainty without which there is no knowledge."
--Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Phenomenology and the Sciences of
Man," In M. Natanson (Ed.), Phenomenology and the Social
Sciences, Volume 1, p. 57
"The first step in phenomenological philosophy is reflection on the
meaning or essence of the experience of consciousness.
'Phenomenological positivism' beings with the facts of experience
and is followed by reflection, intuition, and description of the
phenomena of consciousness. Husserl sought by the study of the
phenomena of consciousness to find the roots of reason in our
human experience. So understood, phenomenology as a philosophy
is the science of the sciences, providing the principles which
validate, a priori, all the sciences.
The concept of the 'intentionality of consciousness' is the
foundation of phenomenological philosophy . . . Husserl adopted
Brentano's notion of intentionality and refined it.
Husserl distinguished between the act of knowing (noesis) from the
object (noema), whether existent or imaginary. To be conscious is
to experience an act of knowing in which the subject is aware of an
object. A conscious act is an act of awareness in which the subject
is presented with an object.
Husserl distinguishes further between perception and intuition.
One may perceive and be conscious of the fact that one perceives
an object without understanding its essence, what it is, its principle
of being and identity. Intuition of the essence of an object is the
source of meaning and intelligibility of the particular phenomena.
Eidetic intuition (Wessenschau) is insight into essences through the
experiencing of exemplifying particulars. Such particulars may be
given in either perception or imagination."
--David Bidney, "Phenomenological Method and the
Anthropological Science of the Cultural Life-World," In M.
Natanson (Ed.), Phenomenology and the Social Sciences, Volume
1, p. 57
"There are two fundamental moments in Husserl's
phenomenological epoche which, although they are correlated, can
be distinguished: 1) the reduction to the sphere of immanence, and
2) the movement from fact to essence. The first of these . . .
requires suspension of the natural attitude and placing in abeyance
all belief in the existence of the transcendent world. The second,
sometimes call the eidetic reduction, requires a shift to consider
things not as realities but as instances of idealities, as pure
possibilities rather than actualities. For Husserl, this second
reduction is necessary to fuflill the conditions for genuinely
rigorous science. Those conditions, already announced by
Descartes under the heaing of clarity and distinctness, already are
apodicticity (that is, the certainty that requires absolute
transparency) and univocity (that is, absence of ambiguity). When
science is conceived this way, its objects are no longer worldly
things, but rather essences: meanings, categories, ideal types, and
laws. For Husserl, rigorous science operates exclusively within the
sphere of ideality--and must do so in order to meet the standards of
atemporality embodied in what he conceives as the very idea of
science. Although it is not identified as such by Husserl, this is an
ancient idea which is generally attributed to Parmenides: only that
can be known which is, and that which genuinely is excludes
coming into being and passing away. The objects of rigorous
science must be atemporal essences whose atemporality is ensured
by their ideality.
This Eleatic strain in Husserl's thought culminates in the standpoint
that meaning (Sinn) in general is timeless and ideal. The ancient
question of how atemporal meanings become instantiated in the
flux of everyday actuality can be addressed by calling upon a
central distinction in Husserl's theory of intentionality: the
distinction between the act of intending (noesis) and the meaning-
content (noema) of the object intended. The noetic act is real in the
sense that it is a temporal even in which hyletic data (or "sensory
contents") are synthesized and apprehended by consciousness as an
intentional object. The noema, on the other hand, is ideal: it
conveys the atemporal meaning which provides the form (morphe)
according to which consciousness synthesizes its mattery or
sensory data (hyle). Thus, every intentional act (noesis) is an
actualization or realization of a timeless meaning."
--M. C. Dillon, Merleau-Ponty's Ontology, p. 71
Summary:
Phenomenology, beginning with Edmund Husserl, urges that the
world of immediate or "lived" experience takes precendence over
the objectified and abstract world of the "natural attitude" of
natural science. Science as such, thus, is secondary to the world of
concrete, lived experience. Phenomenology, therefore, engages in a
process known as "bracketing" in which the "natural attitude" is
placed aside such that the researcher may begin with "the things
themselves," as Husserl said or, in other words, in the
phenomena as they show themselves in experience. In Heidegger's
terminology, phenomenology involves letting things "show
themselves from themselves in the very way in which they show
themselves from themselves." By definition, phenomenology never
begins with a theory, but, instead, always begins anew with the
phenomena under consideration. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's famous
description of phenomenology is quite instructive; as he writes, the
phenomenologist returns "to the world which precedes (scientific
description), (the world) of which science always speaks, and in
relation to which every scientific characterization is an abstract and
derivative sign language, as is geography in relation to the
countryside."
In Husserlian phenomenology, consciousness is understood as
fundamentally intentional. In this sense, Husserl is, in part,
indebted to Franz Brentano's "Act psychology," which held that all
mental acts are characterized by "intentionality." Consciousness as
an act, that is, is always positing a world; in other words, it is
always "of" or "about" something. Following Brentano, Husserl
holds that consciousness is never directed toward itself, but, rather,
is always directed toward phenomena in the world. It follows,
therefore, that any abstraction is ultimately based on phenomena in
the world, and, thus, are secondary to the primary lived experience
of phenomena as they "show themselves."
Husserl brings to this understanding something unique, his
phenomenological method, which is characterized by Husserl's
"epoche." As mentioned previously, "epoche" is a "bracketing" of
the "natural attitude" so that one can attend to a phenomenon as it
shows itself. Once the "natural attitude" is "bracketed," one can
then attend to what, according to Husserl, are the two poles of
experience, noema and noesis. Noesis is the act of perceiving,
while noema is that which is perceived. Through this method, for
Husserl, one can perform an "eidetic reduction." Noema can be
reduced to their essential form or "essence." Husserl's
phenomenology, in this sense, is a form of idealism, since it aims
toward discovering the ideal form of phenomena, the essence or
Eideia(such as with Plato and Hegel). Further, Husserl shares with
the idealist a tendency to stress a priori conditions of knowledge
(such as with Plato and Kant).
What is Existentialism?
"Existentialism is well known in this country both as a literary and
philosophical movement, but its roots in phenomenology are not as
widely understood. Historically, the roots of existential philosophy
can be traced to the nineteenth-century writings of Soren
Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Central to the work of this figures was an emphasis on the existing
individual, and a call for a consideration of man in his concrete
situation, including his culture, history, relations with others, and
above all, the meaning of personal existence."
--David Stewart & Algis Mickunas, Exploring Phenomenology, p.
63
"The very notion that existentialism is something that can be
defined in a catch phrase, orthat one can merely know about it
without understanding it from within, has made it, for some people,
into an intellectual fad and robbed it of its proper seriousness. Yet
existentialism is not merely a fad any more than it is a single, well-
defined movement within philosophy. It is a powerful stream,
welling up from underground sources, converging and diverging,
but flowing forward and carrying with it many of the most
important intellectual tendencies and literary and cultural
manifestations of our day. . .
'Existentialism' is not a philosophy but a mood embracing a
number of disparate philosophies; the differences among them are
more basic than the temper which unites them. This temper can be
described as a reaction against the static, the abstract, the purely
rational, the merely irrational, in favor of the dynmaic and
concrete, personal involvement and 'engagement,' action, choice
and commitment, the distinction between 'authentic' and
'inauthentic' existence, and the actual situation of the existential
subject as the starting point of thought. Beyond this the so-called
existentialists divide according to their views on such matters as
phenomenological analysis, the existential subject, the
intersubjective relation between selves, religion, and the
implications of existentialism for psychotherapy. . .
Insofar as one can define existentialism, it is a movement from the
abstract and the general to the particular and the concrete. . .
The root of 'existentialism' is, of course, 'existence.' That might
seem to include just about everything, and by the same token to say
nothing, were it not for the traditions in the history of religion and
the history of philosophy which have tended to look away from the
'passing flux' of existence to a realm of pure 'Being,' unchanging
and eternal, a world of ideal essences or a formless absolute
beyond these essences, in comparison with which the particulars of
our earthly life are seen as merely phenomena--the shadows in
Plato's cave which at best reflect in wavering and unsteady fashion,
and more usually obscure, that essential reality which is not
directly accessible to man through 'the life of the senses' . . .
Insofar as any philosopher has turned away from the tendency to
locate the really real in a separate metaphysical sphere of essences
in favor of the greater reality of personal existence in the here and
now, he stands for an existentialist trend within the history of
philosophy . . .
It is in [the] emphasis upon the existential subject that the crucial
distinction is found between existentialm and the various brands of
empiricism, positivism, and instrumentalism that also emphasize
the particular, the concrete, and the here and now. For these latter
the particular is still seen from without, from the standpoint of the
detached observer, rather than from within, from the standpoint of
lived life."
--Maurice Friedman, The Worlds of Existentialism: A Critical
Reader, pp. 3-9
Summary:
The origin of existentialism is typically attributed to the work of
Kierkegaard. However, the precursory thinkers who influenced this
school of thought are varied, including Pascal, Hegel,Nietzsche,
and Dostoyevsky, to name a few. One can just as well point back to
the Greeks as influences, since Heidegger emphasized a return to
the central themes in philosophy questions pertaining to Being
(the ontological) as opposed to beings (the ontic). Nevertheless, it
is generally agreed that Kierkegaard is the "father" of
existentialism.
Kierkegaard was a critic of the Christian churches of his day,
which he felt had contributed to a forgetfulness of "existence." By
"existence," Kierkegaard meant the particular form of human
existence which is unique. Each "individual" human being is cast
into the world unfinished and finite, yet, nevertheless, must take
responsibility for his or her choices. Responsibility as such is the
result of the "individual's" free choice, yet, characteristic of human
beings, these choices are always made in the face of the unknown,
our finititude, and, therefore, they lead to "dread." "Dread," in this
sense, is the recognition that one's choices our one's own, despite
the fact that one can never know for certain whether these choices
will bear out in the end. Kierkegaard held great contempt for those
who relied on the "crowd" to take responsibility for individual
choice. For Kierkegaard, one must answer to God as an individual,
naked and apart from the "crowd." Thus, ultimately, our faith must
involve a "leap," since the human being is precluded from finality
and certitude.
Existentialism, as such, is actually a 20th century movement,
despite its roots in Kierkegaard and others. While Kierkegaard
philosophized existentially, which influenced the existentialists of
the 20th century, he did not hold to the existential axiom that
"existence precedes essence," as Sartre asserted. With all of the
existentialist thinkers of the 20th century, there are common
themes, despite great diversity. Whether one looks to Heidegger,
Sartre, Buber, Merleau-Ponty, or De Beauvoir, to name a few, one
finds a basic attitude, despite the major differences among these
thinkers. These commonalites, which bind these theorists together,
can be flushed out and this, in essence, is what one may call
"existentialism." There is some justifiable irony in the fact that
most of these thinkers rejected the term "existentialism." This
tendency to reject any simple definition is descriptive of
existentialism as a whole, since existentialism, as a movement,
resists simplistic categories and abstraction. For the existentialist,
truth' is found "in-the-world" and, thereby, always begins with the
concrete; that is, in existence. And grounded in existence as such,
this means that one's thought must necessarily be perspectival and
limited. Despite these limitations, the common themes of
existentialism include:
1. The human being is a "being-in-the-world." That is, the human
kind of being is always already involved in meaningful projects
with others and alongside things. As Heidegger would say, the
human being is "there being" (Dasein) -- meaning that the human
being exists as the projection of possibilities which open up as a
world. In this sense, the human being is not "in the world" like a
match is in a matchbox. Rather, the human being is "in-the-world"
in the sense that one is in trouble' or in a relationship.'
2. As "being-in-the world," the human being is "thrown" into that
"world" such that she finds herself in the midst of the givens' of
existence. One does not choose one's parents, the place of one's
birth or the fact that one will die, yet, despite these circumstances,
the human being is faced with the freedom to respond to these
givens' of existence. In this sense, human beings can be said to be
response-able.'
3. As "being-in-the-world," the human being is always "with
others." Even being alone can be said to be a mode of being-with-
others, since one cannot be alone unless this is first understood
secondarily as a being-away-from-others. Moreover, our being-
with-others is always as a relationship of some sort, and, being so,
we are both shaped by others and shape those others with whom
we relate.
4. Human beings are always "in-the-world" alongside things.
Things, in terms of existence, are not mere extension in space.
Rather, things exist as meaningful entities which, in one form or
another, call to the human being as significant in terms of the
human being's projection of possibilities. A thing is a thing when it
matters to me in one form or another when, as a thing, it enters
into the clearing by which I am either helped or hindered on my
way toward realizing my projects "in-the-world."
5. Human beings are not things. A thing does not exist as a "being-
in-the-world," since, as a thing, it has no world. For a thing,
nothing matters. Things can only matter for a human being, since it
is only in the world of the human being that things can have
meaning. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to treat human beings
as things,' such as with biology. To provide an example: A corpse
is a thing. A dead person is not a thing, but rather a human being
who no longer lives. One can treat a corpse like a thing, but not a
dead person. This is clear in terms of our relating to others. When I
am with another human being, I fully recongize that I exist as an
other to the other person. However, with a thing, say a rock, I do
not exist for it for I fully recognize that the rock does not exist
in the sense that a human being exists. The rock is not "in-the-
world."
6. Human beings are finite. As a "being-in-the-world," we
recognize that death is a "not-to-be-outstripped" (inevitable)
possibility. Death as such is the possibility of the end of all
possibilities. Existence, therefore, is not limitless, but inevitably
must face up to the mystery of the "nothingness," that which lies
beyond what can be known as a "being-in-the-world." As a "being-
towards-death," as Heidegger would say, the human being becomes
aware that she cannot have all the possibilities. Faced with the
recognition of one's finitude, one also recognizes that one is always
faced with choices. In making a choice, I simultaneously eliminate
thousands of other possible choices. And, yet, making such a
choice, I can never know with absolute certainty that I have made
the right' choice. With this freedom to choose, I am faced with the
responsibility for my own existence.
7. Faced with such freedom, responsibility and finitude, I am
confronted with anxiety and guilt. I am anxious in the face of the
fact that my choice may render a death to my world. Further, in
recognition that with my choice I eliminate other choices, I am
guilty.'
8. Immediate experience has priority over theoretical assumptions.
9. All experience is both physical and mental: How this is so varies
greatly from thinker to thinker.
What is Existential-Phenomenology?
"Failure to see [the] intimate connection between phenomenology
and existentialism will result in thinking of existentialism as only a
subjective reaction against systematic thinnking and not as a
philosophic movmenet with its own set of problems and methods."
--David Stewart & Algis Mickunas, Exploring Phenomenology, p.
63
"Whereas Husserl saw the task of transcendental phenomenology
to be that o describing the lived world from the viewpoint of a
detached observer, existential phenomenology insists that the
observer cannot separate himself from the world. Existential
phenomenologists followed out more rigorously the implications of
the doctrine of intentionality of consciousness. Since
consciousness is always consciousness of . . ., the world is not only
the correlate of consciousness but that without which there would
be no consciousness. Consequently, for existential phenomenology,
the modalities of conscious experience are also the ways one is in
the world. This shift of the notion of the Lebenswelt (lived-world)
to the emphasis upon being-in-the-world expanded
phenomenology in a way that allowed it to consider the totality of
human relationships in the world in terms of the individual's
concrete existence.
The very terminology itself, being-in-the-world, is existentialism's
attempt to avoid reference to human reality in terms either of a
thinking substance or a perceiving subject closed in upon itself
facing physical objects which may or may not be knowable. Being-
in-the-world refers exclusively to human reality in contrast to
nonhuman reality, and although the specific terminology has varied
among existentialists, common to all is the insistence that human
reality is situated in a concrete world-context. In short, man is only
man as a result of his actions which are worked out in the world.
But there is still the reciprocal relationship that phenomenology
insists on: The total ensemble of human actions--including
thoughts, moods, efforts, emotions, and so forth--define the context
in which man situates himself. But, in turn, the world-context
defines and sets limits to human action.
Also central to an understanding of being-in-the-world is the
existentialist insistence that this is not a concept that arises only in
reflection. Even prior to reflection upon one's awareness of being-
in-the-world there is already a prereflective grasp of the basic
modalities which are his ways of being-in-the-world. In
prereflective experience, the subject and world are not distinct;
they are rather the givens of concrete experience which can only be
separated by a process of abstraction. Any reflection--whether
theoretical or practical--already assumes man's prereflective
experience of the world and his activity in the world. The word
existence is usually used by existentialists to refer only to human
reality, for what it means to exist is to be always engaged in tasks
in the world."
--David Stewart & Algis Mickunas, Exploring Phenomenology, pp.
64-65
"Soren Kierkegaard is the founder of existentialism, but one could
hardly call him a phenomenologist. Husserl launched
phenomenology, but was not an existentialist. Thus there was a
time when a distinction needed to be made between existentialism
and phenomenology. Today, however, we also speak of existential
phenomenology or phenomenological existentialism. So the
question may be asked: what is the difference between
existentialism and phenomenology, and how did the unified
movement of existential-phenomenological thinking arise?
Let us point out first of all that there exists a certain harmony
between Husserl and Kierkegaard. It manifests itself in their
common resistance to the atomistic way of looking at man and
things human. Man is not more or less like an atom. The way in
which Kierkegaard and Husserl resisted that view differs:
Kierkegaard speaks of man, while Husserl practically limits
himself to consciousness or knowledge. Kierkegaard conceived
man as 'existence,' as a subject-in-relationship-to-God. Man is not
a self-sufficient spiritual 'atom' but, as a subject, is only
authentically himself in his relationship to the God of revelation.
According to Kierkegaard, 'existence' is absolutely original and
irrepeatable, radically personal and unique. His emphasis on the
uniqueness of 'existence' implies that a thinker's assertions are
applicable only to the thinker himself: in principle, they do not
claim validity for others. Thus, Kierkegaard's position is
deliberately anti-'scientific': it cannot do justice to the dimension of
universality claimed by any 'science' (we do not use the term here
in the sense of positive science). As a matter of principle,
Kierkegaard's way of thinkiing cannot go beyond monologue, the
'solitary meditation.'
Kierkegaard's followers resolutely countered the reproach of being
'unscientific' by saying that existentialism may not be a 'science.'
Their objection to being called 'scientific' appeared to be largely
based on a particular sense of the term 'scientific' as used with
respect to man. In scientism and in the philosophy of Hegel--man
was 'scientifically' discussed in such a way that the original and
unique character of human subjectivity simply disappeared under
verbiage. Yet this kind of speaking was supposed to be 'scientific'
par excellence. The need to reject a particular conception of
'scientific' thinking, however, does not entitle anyone to claim that
philosophical thinking about man must not be 'scientific' in any
sense whatsoever. The philosopher can hardly avoid the use of
universal and necessary judgments to indicate the universal and
necessary structures of man. In this sense he is 'scientific.'
This difficulty hardly existed for Husserl. Originally a
mathematician and physicist, Husserl, like Descartes, was
disturbed ty the confusion of language and the welter of opinions
existing in philosophy. Clearly, philosophy was 'not yet a science,'
and this made Husserl launch his phenomenology as an attempt to
make philosophy also a 'rigorous science.' He was clever enough to
avoid the trap of ascribing to philosophy the same scientific
character as belongs to the positive sciences. Philosophy cannot
allow physics or any other positive science to dictate its methods,
for the simple reason that philosophy is not a positive science. It
has to become scientific in its own way in its expression of
intersubjective and objectively general truth.
To realize this ambitious plan, Husserl investigated man's
consciousness or knowledge. He conceived consciousness as
intentional, oriented to something other than itself. Whereas
Husserl addressed himself to problems in the theory of knowledge,
Kierkegaard tried to answer theological-anthropological questions.
The distinction between existentialism and phenomenology
consisted primarily in the different directions of their concern.
The two streams of thought merged in Heidegger's Being and
Time, where they served as the foundation of the philosophy now
known as 'existential phenomenology.' Heidegger's philosophy of
man does not lapse into the illusions of either idealism or
positivism. Influenced by the phenomenological theory of
knowledge, existentialism gave up its anti-scientific attitude.
Phenomenology, on the other hand, enriched itself and developed
into a philosophy of man by borrowing many topics from
Kierkegaard's existentialism. In this way there arose the unified
movement of existential-phenomenological thinking of which
Heidegger, Sartre--though not in every respect--Merleau-Ponty and
the Higher Institute of Philosophy of Louvain are the principal
exponents."
--William A. Luijpen & Henry J. Koren, A First Introduction to
Existential Phenomenology, pp. 18-21
"Heidegger accepts Husserl's definition of phenomenology: he will
attempt to describe, he says, without any obscuring preconceptions,
what human existence is. But his imagination could not let the
matter go at this, for he noted that the world 'phenomenon' comes
from the Greek. The etymologies of words, particularly of Greek
words, are a passion with Heidegger; in his pursuit of them he has
been accused of playing with words, but when one realizes what
deposits of truth mankind has let slip into its language as it
evolves, Heidegger's perpetual digging at words to get at their
hidden nuggets of meaning is one of his most exciting facets. In the
matter of Greek particularly--a dead language, whose whole
history is now spread out before us--we can see how certain truths
are embedded in the language itself: truths that the Greek race later
came to forget in its thinking. The world "phenomenon"--a word in
ordinary usage, by this time, in all modern European languages--
means in Greek 'that which reveals itself.' Phenomenology
therefore means for Heidegger the attempt to let the thing speak for
itself. It will reveal itself to us, he says, only if we do not attempt
to coerce it into one of our read-made conceptual strait-jackets.
Here we get the beginning of his rejoinder to the Nietzscean view
that knowledge is in the end an expression of the Will to Power:
according to Heidegger we do not know the object by conquering
and subduing it but rather by letting it be what it is and, in letting it
be, allowing it to reveal itself as what it is. And our own human
existence too, in its most immediate, internal nuances, will reveal
itself if we have ears to hear it."
--William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential
Philosophy, pp. 191-192
Summary:
In ways that, perhaps, are already clear to the reader, existentialism
and phenomenology lend themselves to one another quite nicely.
With Heidegger, phenomenology, as the study of mental acts
(noesis) and their intentional correlates (noemata), becomes
grounded in his ontological analysis of Dasein (the human kind of
being) as a "being-in-the-world." Ultimately, Heidegger breaks
from the Cartesian, subject-object split, still operative in Husserl's
thought; as Macann (1993) writes:
"In place of the Husserlian procedure which moves from the world
of the natural attitude up to a higher, transcendental plane with a
view to bring to light the transcendental structures constitutive of
the objectivity of the entities encountered in the natural attitude, we
find an alternative procedure which moves from the ontic level
down to a deeper, ontological plane with a view to bringing to light
the ontological structures constitutive of the being of the entities in
question." (From Macann's (1993) Four Phenomenological
Philosophers, p. 63).
Heidegger, like Husserl, begins with the human being's pre-
reflective, pre-ontological, lived understanding of the world, but,
rather than seeking the essence of the phenomona, like Husserl,
Heidegger is concerned with the ontological ground of the
phenomena; that is, what makes the phenomena possible. With this
methodology, Heidegger aims to ask the question of Being,
theontological, though he must begin with beings, the ontic.
Heidegger's method, therefore, is hermeneutic rather than
transcendental. He holds that the human being always already
understand the meaning of Being, yet this has been forgotten or
"covered over." Beginning with the pre-ontological, Heidegger
aims to discover what the human being already knows pre-
reflectively, yet which must be made explicit through the method
of phenomenology.
What is the relationship between hermeneutics and existential-
phenomenology?
"Hermeneutics [is] the art or theory of interpretation, as well as a
type of philosophy that starts with questions or interpretation.
Originally concerned more narrowly with interpreting sacred texts,
the term acquired a much broader significance in its historical
development and finally beame a philosophical position in 20th
century German philosophy. There are two competing positions in
hermeneutics: whereas the first follows Wilhelm Dilthey and sees
interpretation or Verstehen as a method for the historical and
human sciences, the second follows Heidegger and sees it as an
'ontological event,' an interaction between interpreter and text that
is part of the history of what is understood. Providing rules or
criteria for understanding what an author or native 'really' meant is
the typical problem for the first approiach. The interpretation of the
law provides an example for the second view, since the process of
applying the law inevitably transforms it."
--Robert Audi (Ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, p.
323
Methodological hermeneutics:
Methodological hermeneutics refers to hermeneutics as a human
science, originating in the work of Schleiermacher and Dilthey.
"Schleiermacher's analysis of understand and expression related to
texts and speech marks the beginning of hermeneutics in the
modern sense of a scientific methodology. This emphasis on
methodology continues in 19th century historicism and culminates
in Dilthey's attempt to ground the human sciences in a theory of
interpretation, understood as the imaginative but publicly verifiable
reenactment of the subjective experiences of others. Such a method
of interpretation reveals the possibility of an objective knowledge
of human beings not accessible to empiricst inquiry and thus of a
distinct methodology for the human sciences. One result of the
analysis of interpretation in the 19th century was the recognition of
"the hermeneutic circle," first developed by Schleiermacher. The
circularity of interpretation concerns the relation of parts to the
whole: the interpretation of each part is dependent on the
interpretation of the whole. But interpretation is circular in a
stronger sense: if every interpretation is itself based on
interpretation, then the circle of interpretation, even if it is not
vicious, cannot be escaped."
--Robert Audi (Ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, pp.
323-324
Ontological hermeneutics:
Ontological hermeneutics finds its expression in the existential-
phenomenological work of Martin Heidegger, and is elaborated on
by his student Hans-Georg Gadamer.
"In Being and Time, Heidegger attacked Dilthey's view that
hermeneutics is one among a variety of methods. In Heidegger's
philosophy hermeneutics is constitutive of human being (Dasien).
'The phenomenology of Dasein is hermeneutic in the primordial
significatiuon of this word" (Heidegger, 1962, p. 62). Or as Charles
Guignon (1983) has put it:
In our everyday lives we grasp entitites in terms of a tacit
understanding of what it is to be, and we are constantly driven to
make that understanding explicit and revise it on the basis of
passing encounters and collisions. The hermeneutic approach to
fundamental ontology, far from being a technique for uncovering
meanings in an alient text, is just a more rigorous and explicit
version of the kind of movmenet toward clarity and depth which
makes up life itself. (p. 71)
. . . In the course of the existential analytic of Dasein, Heidegger
(1962) advanced the thesis that scientific activity takes place
within a context of preunderstanding that derives from a certain
situatedness in the life-world and from participation in various
activities that include practical dealings with tools and implements.
Such practical dealings and understandings are achieved in the
course of various customary, everyday transactions with the
environment. These occur within a taken-for-granted cultural and
historical background that consists of practices, habits, and skills,
but cannot be spelled out explicitly and comprehended because it is
so pervasive that we cannot make it an object of inquiry. This is the
lived-world of what Heidegger called 'Everydayness.'
Heidegger argued that the fundamental mode of human existence--
that on the basis of which all other modes must be understood--is
not detached knowing but rather, engaged activity. In his view
other modes of experience, like the disinterested contemplation of
the scientist or the phenomenologist, are preceded, both temporally
and logically, by everyday situations of involvement with the
world. Thus, for Heidegger everydayness is not just a possible
mode of existence; it is a primordial foundation from which other
modes derive. And, according to him, a careful, unprejudiced
investigation of a typical everyday situation of activity shows the
untenability of certain philosophical assumptions that have
pervaded Western philosophy at least since the time of Descartes,
and have persisted, albiet in disguised form, in the transcendental
(as opposed to hermeneutic) phenomenology of the philosopher
Husserl. One of Heidegger's standard illustrations of everydayness
is the situation of a carpenter hammering a nail.
For Heidegger, the paradigmatic object in the human world is
something like the carpenter's hammer--that is, not a mere physical
thing or a sensation or an idea contemplated from a position of
scientific or philosophical detachment (as the empiricist
philosophers would have it), but a tool that is used. Such a tool
seems to occupy a kind of middle realm that defies the traditional
Cartesian and Platonic polarities. That is, it cannot be equated with
either the 'subject' or the 'object' of Cartesian philosophy, nor with
the 'quality' or 'substance' of Platonic philosophy. Such objects of
equipment are termed by Heidegger ready-to-hand. An entirely
different ontology is involved here. An object of equipment that is
ready-to-hand is the locus of both subject and object, self and
world, quality and substance. Thus, a hammer is not a 'hammer' by
virtue of its place in the human world. Nor is its quality of
'hammerness' something that comes from some subjective inner
space and gets 'projected' onto a material or sensory substrate.
Thus, in Heidegger's account both the subject-object distinction
and the distinction between quality (or meaning) and substance (be
it material or sensory) turns out to be misleading. In the lifeworld
of engaged human activity, according to Heidegger, the hammer's
'hammerness' is experienced as out there in the world, inseparable
from the substance it imbues, and the external world is 'always
already' imbued with human purpose and meaning. The ready-to-
hand mode is contrasted with another form that Heidegger called
present-at-hand. An object that is present-at-hand is not in a
unified, integrated, field-like relation with a subject, but rather
corresponds to the isolated perceptual object that is studied by a
detached, uninvolved observer.
Just as the unity of subject and object is crucial to readiness-to-
hand, so too is the quality of complete interrelatedness. Heidegger
emphasizes that a particular item of equipment can never be
understood in isolation from other objects that are ready-to-hand,
since it only exists as such in a purpose-imbued context of other
equipment and their respective uses. Thus, Heidegger emphasizes
that the objects in one's world are not separate entities but
constituents of a unified field, a field that is itself constituted by the
essential unity of subject and object: A hammer is what it is
because it fills a slot in the 'equipmental context' of the human
lifeworld.
In Heidegger's view, then, human being [Dasein] involves what
might be called an implicitly sensed 'ground,' 'horizon,' or
'clearing,' which is the context or totality within which experience
occurs. This horizon, which undercuts the Cartesian opposition of
subject and object, is in a sense the most important aspect of
human existence, for it is the very condition or possibility of
anything at all appearing or being known. Moreover, it is the only
place where the being of either 'man' or 'world' is disclosed.
The Heideggerian view of human existence is, at its deepest level,
opposite to that of the early Dilthey, who took for granted the
essential self-transparency or intelligibility of consciousness. In the
Heideggerian view, the conscious experience of another person or
culture cannot be ascertained in any objective sense. The horizonal
character of Dasein makes it impossible to retain faith in the
transparency and certitude of phenomenological description.
Dasien can known its own being only in an approximate, tentative,
and indirect way--not by taking its own ordinary self-
understanding at face value, nor through some quasi-scientific
method of direct intuition with access to certain and foundational
data. For on this view experinece is a kind of text-analogue that
needs to be interpreted (hence, Heidegger's is a hermeneutic
phenomenology), an intrinsically obscure object with which one
must adopt an approximate and metaphoric, rather than quasi-
scientific mode of description."
--Robert L. Woolfolk, Louis A. Sass, & Stanley B. Messer,
"Introduction to Hermeneutics," In Messer, Sass & Woolfolk
(Eds.), Hermeneutics and Psychological Theory, pp. 12-18
What is the relationship between ontology and existential-
phenomenology?
In his 1941 lecture, Grundbegriffe (Basic Concepts), Heidegger
discusses the "ontological difference" that is central to his thought.
Here it is summarized by Ernesto Grassi:
"Heidegger explains the essential difference between Being (Sein)
and beings (Seiendes). This is what is referred to as the 'ontological
difference.' He demonstrates this essential difference by pointing
out the impossibility of speaking about Being (Sein) in the form of
a being (Seiendes) (in the sense of some object). Every attempt to
define Being in this way leads to contradictions.
An initial definition of Being, Heidegger observes, must maintain
that Being is that which is most 'empty' since it is predicated of all
beings and, hence, is what is most common to all things. The Being
of each being is asserted with the verb 'is.' We say of a stone that it
'is,' of an animal, of a house, and of an attitude that it 'is.' Only by
virtue of such an 'emptiness' is it possible for us to find Being in
everything there is. Being does without any particular distinction in
order to appear within every being. In contrdiction to this initial
definition of Being as empty and common to everything, we are
also forced to recognize that Being can be defined in the opposite
way, that is, as 'singular and one.' For we are concerned only with
the 'Being' of all the many different things that are. Each such thing
is to be understood in terms of 'Being.' Hence, instead of
characterizing Being as common the way we did before, Being is
also the opposite of this, namely singular, because Being is
everywhere, among beings, 'the same.'
A second definition of Being, according to Heidegger, purports that
Being is 'what is most understandable' of all to us because it is only
upon the basis of Being that beings can be conceived of or spoken
about at all. Wherever and whenever beings are experienced, we
also take account of Being because Being is connected with our
understanding of beings everywhere and at every moment. In this
way Being proves to be what is most readily understood. But here
too we are faced with a contradiction because we must confront
this definition with the fact that Being is also waht is 'most hidden
or concealed' (das Verborgenste). Every attempt to say what Being
is forces us to define it as a being among other beings which means
that we necesarily fail to say what is is asBeing. Being remains
hidden as Being and this 'staying hidden' belongs to Being itself.
Heidegger's third definition of Being is directed to the insight that
Being is what can be 'most relied upon' (das Verlaeslichte). For
how are we even to doubt particular beings in any way, if it is not
already certain that we can rely on what it means to be? We refer
most frequently to Being since it is named in every noun, adjective,
and verb. This expression of what is, is not an expression of an
agreement (Zu-sage) to each particular situation, but rather
something that 'must already be given before' (Vorgabe) because it
is only by virtue of this expression that it is possible to name
beings.
This definition of Being is also connected to the opposite insight
that Being is what is most abysmal (das Abruendigste) and as such
is 'waht is least of all reliable' (das Unverlaesslkichtste). Every
attempt to define Being--and so to logically fixate it--fails. Being,
therefore, does not stand firmly as something upon which we can
build. Moreover, Being is what is 'most silent' (das
Verschwiegenste). Every assertion about Being goes astray
becuase, by the very process of assertaion, Being is relegated to the
status of 'a being.' This going astray is unavoidable. On the other
hand, Being is what is 'most often expressed' in language since, in
every assertion about beings, Being is also spoken about. It is
therefore the wod that breaks the silence.
According to Heidegger's fifth definition of Being, it is what has
been 'most of all forgotten,' because the questions that man has
raised are directed to beings and not to Being, that is, they are
directed to nature, man, and all of those things that affect us
directly and urge themselves upon us. But even this definition is
contradicted insofar as Being is actually that which is 'most of all
remembered.' For if Being were completely eradicated from our
recollection, then beings could neither be met with nor asserted as
Being. That urgent necessity that we meet with in the experience of
things is rooted in the claim that Beings make upon us (in
language: Anspruch des Seins).
Finally, Being turns out to be involved in one last contradiction, for
it proves to be simultaneously 'what is most necessitating'
(Noetigendste) as well as what is 'most liberating' (Befreiendste); it
is only by virtue of the claim of Being (Anspruch) that the Being of
beings is revealed. Since the subject and object are both beings,
they therefore confront each other only through the liberation of
Being, that is, through the freedom of Being. More specifically,
man comes to himself as a subject in relationship to an object
through the liberating action of Being."
--Ernesto Grassi, Heidegger and Renaissance Humanism, pp. 31-
35
What is the difference between Heidegger's "ontological
difference" and negative theology?
"The essential different between Heidegger's philosophy of
unhiddenness and negative theology as found in Dionysius and
John of the Cross consists in tehir completely different starting
points. They understand divine Being as a Being in and for itself,
outside of history, so that it emerges primarily through the
theophany of a mystic. Heidegger, however, claims that Being
emerges through the 'clearing' of different, purely historical spaces
in which particular gods, institutions, and arts appear historically.
For negative theology, as well as for Heidegger, Being (God) is
'sublime,' but in a fundamentally different sense. In negative
theology the sublime and elevated nature of God is defined in the
sense that it finally can be made visible only by relinquishing those
capacities (rational knowledge, memory and will) that make
possible the 'day' of rational life.
For Heidegger, too, Being is not exhausted by beings and so Being
is sublime and elevated in this sense for him. It remains hidden in
its essence in its revelation of beings. But for Heidegger the
rational process of thought remains necessary in the sphere of
beings--where Being reveals itself--insofar as this process 'fixes'
the order of beings. The giving of grounds establishes and defines
beings as the particular things found here and now that announce
Being. Beings belong to the revelation of Being and must be 'held
to' in their particular historical form, but always in the sign of the
'opening' of Being. Only by remembering Being is the way to the
'new' open, the way to hope.
Our success or failure to hold ourselves open to the new gives us
the possibilities for beginning or ending historical process. 'When
the unhiddenness of Being does not present itself, it dismisses the
slow disappearance of all that can offer healing to beings. This
disappearance of what heals takes with it the openness of the holy.
The closed nature of the holy darkens the luminescence of the
divine' (Heidegger, Nietzsche, pt. 1, p. 394)."
--Ernesto Grassi, Heidegger and Renaissance Humanism, pp. 90-
91
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Heidegger vs Husserl: Phenomenological choices

In the course of my research towards developing a framework for a

Visual Communication Phenomenological Methodology, I have
now followed literature back to Nursing sources. Several
recommended papers have been useful, and in turn they have also
pointed to other possibly useful nursing sources.

Lopez and Willis (2004) help to clarify the different philosophical

underpinnings to a Phenomenological study, and the importance of
positioning the study clearly within one of the two philosophical
schools of Phenomenology.

I'm basing my study on Moustakas' (1994) guidelines, but those are

merely generic and non-partisan. As Lopez and Willis state
"implementing a method without an examination of its
philosophical basis can result in research that is ambiguous in its
purpose, structure, and findings" (p726). So I will need to position
my research methodology firmly within either the eidetic or
hermeneutic schools.

Eidetic Phenomenology is descriptive of the phenomena, and is

Husserlian in its philosophical roots. Hermeneutic Phenomenology
is interpretive and owes its philosophical roots to Heidegger, a
student of Husserl. Where the importance of choosing the
philosophical school for a study resides is in how its findings are
generated and used. Both schools deal with this differently. Hence
the importance of not being generic in the design of the
methodology, but philosophically specific.

In Eidetic (Husserlian) research it is important for the researcher to

absolutely 'bracket out' prior personal knowledge and biases, to
achieve "transcendental subjectivity". This results in the researcher
holding in "abeyance ideas, preconceptions, and personal
knowledge when listening to and reflecting on the lived
experiences of participants" (p728). From these lived experiences
features or essences that are common under Phenomenological
scrutiny emerge that represent the phenomena's true identity. This
is so so that a generalised description can be made, through a
foundationalist approach, with a belief (reflecting scientific values)
that these essences "can be extracted from lived experiences
without a consideration for context" (p728).

In the Hermeneutic philosophical school (or even movement) its

application has predominantly been in Theology, and its purpose is
to go beyond mere descriptions of core concepts, or essences, "to
look for meanings embedded in common life practices" (p728) to
bring out what is normally hidden in human experience. Its focus
therefore is on what humans experience rather than know within
what Heidegger termsbeing-in-the-world. This situates the
experience within a context of alife-world, which all sounds
comfortably similar to what Dourish (2004) and Suchman (1987)
discuss in part of their respective theses.

As Lopez and Willis discuss "Heidegger asserted that humans are

embedded in their world to such an extent that subjective
experiences are inextricably linked with social, cultural, and
political contexts" (p729). In Hermeneutic Phenomenology its
foundational aspect is on the "interpretation of the narratives
provided by participants in relation to various contexts" (p729),
meaning that unlike Eidetics, the context remains crucial to
understanding through interpretation. A fundamental divergence in
approaches between the two schools lies in the act of 'bracketing'.
In Hermeneutic Phenomenology making any preconceptions on the
part of the researcher explicit and explaining their use within the
research has a long tradition. Absolute 'bracketing out' that prior
knowledge is inconsistent with an interpretive approach. This is a
crucial difference I need to build into MY methodology.

Finally Lopez and Willis summarise that an interpretative approach

is "useful in examining contextual features of experiences that
might have direct relevance to practice. Moreover, a critical
hermeneutic framework can enable the researcher to bring to light
hidden features of an experience that would be overlooked in a
purely descriptive approach" (p734). They urge for careful
consideration of which school to choose to inform the analysis.
Naturally I feel my framework approach to the methodology is
more interpretative, and that will be more useful within design
(more on this in a future post).

References used:

DOURISH, P. (2004). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of

Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press.
LOPEZ, K.A., and WILLIS, D.G. (2004) Descriptive Versus
Interpretive Phenomenology: Their Contributions To Nursing
Knowledge. Qualitative Health Research, 14(5), pp726-735.
SUCHMAN, L. (1987). Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem
of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
................

Is Heidegger's departure from Husserl due to Heidegger's turn to

metaphysics? If so, doesn't that make Heidegger's critique of
Husserl irrelevant?
Husserl makes it quite clear that phenomenology is not
metaphysics, and as such Husserl only tends to the structures that
idealism provides, and the incorporation of real experience into
said structures that could lead us towards a transcendental
intersubjectivity. Husserl's phenomenological reduction allows
existence to be whatever it may be, and it would not change the
structures of such consciousness. So Heidegger's metaphysical
tendencies makes his criticism completely irrelevant since it
comments on Husserl's science as though it were a philosophy,
when pure phenomenology is designed and intended not to be a
philosophy, but rather the science of philosophy which is a world
of difference. Or did I get this all wrong?
Very briefly: for Heidegger, being is as it appears, therefore
phenomenology is the same as ontology. For Husserl, the
correlation between phenomena and reality is a problem that does
not exist for Heidegger. It is not true that Husserl merely describes
the contents of consciousness: he brackets the natural attitude that
adscribes an external correlation to phenomena and hopes to regain
the outside through a study of pure phenomena (eg, The Idea of
Phenomenology); therefore Husserl does have ontological aims.
Both Husserl and Heidegger have ontological aims, and have a
radical disagreement on whether being=phenomena.
Apr 21, 2014
Ronnen Paytan
Ronnen Paytan Independent Researcher
Hi Mathew,

The bottom line first: I believe that the words 'departure' and 'turn'
do not necessarily reflect the true nature of the penomenological
perspectives on phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger in their
final form. The word may be more reflective of the natural need to
differentiate and label in order to avoid complexity.

As Heidegger once said, we need to be very selective in our use of

words as, rightly or wrong, they frame our mindset and tunnel our
thinking. You used in your question the words 'departure' and 'turn'
that are part of the natural scholarly attitude toward
phenomenology, at least from the historical 'who said what to
whom' perspective. As suggested by Fink, Husserl's latest student,
and practically embraced by Husserl in his last years and by
Heidegger after the war, phenomenology in its core is the
transcendence of methodology regardless its scientific,
mathematical, philosophical, religious, cultural, political, and/or
artistic origins. This means that phenomenology and
phenomenological discussions are better off applying
phenomenological practices on themselves. As Heidegger
mentioned in the last pages of being and time, phenomenology is
well suited to vicious circle type problems, we just need by trial
and error to find the entry point. Furthermore, as documented by
Gdel in his philosophical oriented works, unlike mathematically-
oriented methodologies that break by necessity when applied on
vicious circle problems, phenomenology excels when applied on
itself and from the perspective of this discussion, it would be better
to conduct a phenomenological investigation on phenomenology in
order to get to an acceptable answer.

This cannot be done here and must be done individually by each

interested individual, but here is the rudementary and incomplete
set of cues that I can provide to the discussion following my own 5
years journey:

1. Husserl's and Heidegger's works should be regarded in their

whole as part of the scholarly milieu of their time and not as
isolated components.

2. Both had initial fallacies or incompletenesses that were

discovered in later iterations and refinements of applying their
emerging views of phenomenology on the views themselves:
Husserl got into phenomenology while researching the
mathematical natural attitude and Heidegger was initially
interested in the theological natural attitude from a Germanic
perspective - both, for different reasons, expanded gradually their
horizons of interest.

3. The books that they published reflected their views at specific

times and were partly shaped by and were subject to the political
and sociocultural turmoil of the first half of the 20th century - in
some cases their notes may better representatives of their thoughts
than their books.

4. Heidegger's and Husserl's major disagreement of the 1920s-

1930s regarding the interrelation between the natural and the
transcendental attitudes faded as both scholars understood the need
for continuous process of forming and unforming applied on a
specific topic of interest while maintaining simultaneous awareness
of the transcendental and the natural.

5. Heidegger's critique of Husserl in his die grundprobleme der

phnomenologie in 1927 relates to the early purely transcendental
views of Husserl and not his more mature views.

6. I recommend for further reading the following books: (a)

Husserl: 'analyses concerning passive and active syntheses', 'the
sixth cartesian meditation' (edited/written with/by Fink and
therefore controvertial, but nevertheless very important), 'the fifth'
and 'the crisis' (read again after the previous books were read); and
(b) Heidegger: 'the basic problems', 'what is called thinking', 'the
principle of reason', and 'identity and difference'.

Not sure if it is clear enough, 100 years of phenomenology prove

that, unless inhumanly complex structures are used, words are
limited in their ability to express concepts of being.

HTH,
Ronnen
Jul 9, 2013
ALL ANSWERS (27)
Mathew Cohen
Mathew Cohen The University of Calgary
Because Husserl makes no claims to existence and starts with what
we know, how is it possible that anyone - namely Heidegger/Sartre
- can refute this position? After all, isn't any claim or knowledge
about existence-of-being presuppose one to abide by the 'logic' that
Husserl is uncovering? To refute anything that Husserl says by
ontological reasoning one first has to show how one is able to
arrive at said 'knowledge' from a sound base? Husserl's sound base
is Descarte's "I think therefore I am" for any doubting of this claim
presupposes the very claim it means to object hence rendering
itself to contradiction and thus false.

Any claims about existence no matter how convincing they are, no

matter how obvious the axioms, have to follow a particular
structure of relations of consciousness between the noematic-noetic
phases, the doxic, modalities and so forth. i believe Husserl means
to say that it is based on this structure of consciousness that one
can be made aware of existential features and arrive at existential
claims, and therefore because it rests on these structures that were
built apodeitically it serves only to show the flexibility and
strength of pure phenomenology not its weakness.

To speak of existence here and now is to point to something that

can only be known in terms of something ideal, and thus anything
truly KNOWN follows a phenomenological construct. And in order
to do that, Husserl's phenomenology has to be expanded upon from
where he left off.

Anyways, since I am reading the above works independently it is

hard for me to get feedback on whether I understand it well enough
or not, so I had put forward these questions to the community to
help verify or challenge my understanding. So by no means do I
assume I am an expert. In fact, I believe myself to be the opposite,
and I am in need of direction.
Jul 3, 2013
Herman Schurmans
Herman Schurmans Werkgroep 18e Eeuw
Show metaphysics out by the door, the metaphysical reenters by
the window.
Jul 4, 2013
Neal O'Donnell
Neal O'Donnell Fort Hare University
I wonder if it could be seen to be the child going off in a new
direction. While Heidegger and the later phenomenologists may be
seen to be refuting the master, is this the case, I ask. Is it not more
a question of adding new dimensions to Husserl's groundbreaking
work?
Jul 4, 2013
Ken Casey
Ken Casey Independent Researcher
I know just enough about Husserl to be dangerous--however
regarding Edith Stein and some of the phenomenological school--I
am on better ground. I think Husserl's position is ever evolving and
that many of his early students Stein, Reinach etc felt that Husserl's
abandonment of metaphysical realism (sometime between Ideen 1
and Ideen 2 which Stein was helping to edit) was the cause of a big
philosophical break with many of Husserl's students. I learned a lot
from Alasdair MacIntyre's book on Edith Stein--it is more about
ealry phenomenology than it is about Edith Stein.

I guess what I am saying is that the presupposition of your question

fails to distinguish between early and late Husserl. Early Husserl
may have been a metaphysical realist and saw phenomenology as
having a complex dialectical relation to metaphysics.
Jul 4, 2013
 Jozef Piacek
Jozef Piacek Comenius University in Bratislava
Herman issue is important in terms of otherness Husserl's and
Heidegger's philosophy: both are metaphysical philosophy in the
traditional sense, each one is different, original. Heidegger's
philosophy was an original philosophy, although Heidegger came
from Husserl. The problem is a criticism to be replaced by
syncriticism, i. e. by nonreductive bringing both philosophies in
relationship. Heidegger by his critique of Husserl only made
oneself distinguished from Husserl; Heidegger created a different
philosophy and sense has only to compare the two.
http://www.jozefpiacek.info/2013/06/syncriticism-summary/
Syncriticism (summary) | Pomocn slovnk filozofa
slovenska filozofia, synkriticizmus, kultura, civilizacia, kriza
civilizacie, kriza, laska, smrt, vychova, bezcasie, atemporalita
Jul 4, 2013
Anatoli Tchoussov
Anatoli Tchoussov Lomonosov Moscow State University
it seems to me that this question needs to define an ontological
(and ontical - too) difference between physics and metaphysics;

such a difference can be made by a definition of sorts of givenness

(Arten der Gegebenheiten);

it's a pity, but those differences (and differances too) were not
explicitly stated nor by Husserl nor by Heidegger (imho)
Jul 4, 2013
Mathew Cohen
Mathew Cohen The University of Calgary
Right, but by the very admission that you and Arten der
Gegenbenheiten indicate that the difference can be made by sorts
of givenness, is parallel to the very noema that Husserl talks about
as arising out of its noetic correlate. In other words, whatever
meaning that is given from a particular phenomena is based on a
particular, or a set of particular, noetic phases that allow it to be
meant as 'such and such'. Each 'givenness' has its manner in which
it is given. So while one may say that Husserl is making an
existential claim as to the relationship between the noetic and
noema, I believe Husserl would say that they only exist insofar as
they are built upon other noetic and noematic relationships that
ultimately can be deconstructed to ego cogito ego sum and the
manner which this is experienced.

And while I agree that Husserl does not explicitly state these
ontilogical differences between physics and metaphysics (from my
preliminary assessments of reading L.I, Ideas I, and Cart Med, and
Phantasy, Image Cons, and Memory - I have yet to read his other
books) I feel it is because he has to spend the bulk of his time like
Moses "mapping out the desert" so to speak, and is unable to
precisely to lead us into the "promised land". So much time is
spent defending and articulating what he means that he fails to
make progress in bringing us to the familiar terrain of philosophy
and empirical sciences.

So basically I am saying that Husserl would probably agree with

you that he doesn't spend a lot of time on this, but I believe he
would also say that his sole purpose was to show that the
difference CAN be become "known" by phenomenology. Thus if
even existence may contradict our facts, Husserl would have little
care whatsoever about this, because he is only interested in
understanding what we can and how we can KNOW (ex: how we
can know of metaphysical propositions), which is different from
knowing what exists. [And while this threatens to position him
ever so dangerously close to the dualism that he objects to, I
acknowledge that it does and that I lack the ability to articulate
myself out of this conundrum to the same level of conviction that
Husserl is able to do.]

All in all, I guess, I make the argument: that anything that bases
itself on a metaphysical premise cannot be considered to be a
phenomenology (as by Husserl's standards). And I am looking for
either affirmation or criticism regarding this because I believe my
entire understanding on Husserlian thought rests on this. And as I
get sucked into more of my own world and ways I would like to
know if I have been navigating the terrain accurately or if I am way
off course. Much thanks to all of your contributions so far. I look
forward to reading more.
Jul 4, 2013
Anatoli Tchoussov
Anatoli Tchoussov Lomonosov Moscow State University
@Mathew: m.b., in a development of a Rickert's direction, the
early Heidegger (1915) had distinguished 3 realms of being (such
ideas routed also in L.I. (1900-1901) but are more explicitly made
in L.I.(1912));

imho, the main purpose of Husserl and Heidegger was laid in a

sphere of construction of a world (as an unique construction);

but their constructions - for me - are non-satisfying (but very

important)
Jul 4, 2013
Yuling Yeh
Yuling Yeh Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages
I have a neuroscience doctor friend who once told me, she would
never marry to a personal who also possess a PhD degree because
'too much opinions" simply about everything and non-sense!, or,
she perhaps would be willing to marry to a PhD guy who obtains
totally different academic specialty.
Jul 4, 2013
Ananda Mishra
Ananda Mishra Banaras Hindu University
One must not judge a philosopher by what he claims but only by
what he actually does.In spite of all their claims Husserl or even
Sartre were trapped into metaphysical speculation.A clear idealistic
tendency is visible everywhere in Husserl's later works.Similarly
contrary to his claim Sartre remained realist throughout his career.
However, Heidegger-Sartre objections to the Husserlian
phenomenology are valid I think. Husserl presupposes "the ghost
of Ego" which is fully illegitimate as phenomenoly claims to centre
only on that which appears to consciousness and not to that which
grounds from within.It was in fact a return to the old metaphysical
speculation.On the other hand Heidegger's fundamental ontology
could better explain that the the theory of intentionality does not
permit us to bracket any thing which is given to our
consciousness.And hence the worldly existence cannot be
bracketed.
Jul 5, 2013
Herman Schurmans
Herman Schurmans Werkgroep 18e Eeuw
Joseph, I assume we all have to learn from a master. This
relationship is much as one between father and son. Do we have to
kill the father to take his place? But it often hapens in philosophy,
and elswere. A good fat(her wishes to be surpassed by his son. This
is a most tragic task for most uf us. So we can be a good son, and a
good or bad succesor. The kind of philosopher you are depends on
the kind of man you are (Fichte) . .
Jul 5, 2013
Neal O'Donnell
Neal O'Donnell Fort Hare University
this is turning out to be a rather interesting debate. I agree with
Herman in that there is a sense of satisfaction in watching a son (or
daughter, in my case) do better. I also agree with Ananda: it is
extremely difficult to enter into true 'epoche'; however, being
conscious of one's background is helpful in being open to the
discussion, it is also a huge learning curve, as I found when doing
psychotherapy with sexually abused women.
In my Heideggerian studies (on the relevance of care in medicine
and nursing) I am finding that it is essential to read Husserl and his
students (Stein, for instance) in order to 'see' what Heidegger is on
about. But reading Husserl does not necessarily entail studying
him. It is background like reading Brentano and Nietzsche.
Jul 5, 2013
Mathew Cohen
Mathew Cohen The University of Calgary
So would I be correct in generalizing most of the answers here as
saying: "Mathew, you cannot have such a restrictive umbrella that
determines what is and is not phenomenology. Phenomenology is
like everything else. It grew out of a set of thoughts, and gives
birth to another set of thoughts, which in turn go on and on and on.
Husserl arrived at his position because of his history and ethos, and
therefore his phenomenology does not deserve privilege amongst
the rest. To try to excise out only that which is his phenomenology
is like brain surgery and will likely cause damage to both what is
phenomenological, and all its surroundings since they are all
attached. It is simply part of a body of work, and therefore the
question about distinguishing his from others is both trivial (insofar
that everyone's can be expediently distinguished from others) and
is also invalid in itself (since in truth it bares the DNA of its sire
and cannot be separated therefrom) ."

If this is the meaning that everyone seems to be articulating then it

is one that I can fully respect, and slowly coming to agreement
with - (notwithstanding, there being a hesitation I feel, as though I
am missing some other argument). Thank you all for your
participation and help. Please do not hesitate to continue to
respond. I have gained so much, and look forward to more of your
insights and experience.
Jul 5, 2013
William Springer
William Springer University of Texas at El Paso
Merleau-Ponty, I think, had it right. What Husserl's epoche
(bracketing) shows is that it cannot be done. It reminds me of
Bertrand Russel's address to his fellow philosophers-- he is
convinced that solipsism is true, but out of respect for his listeners
he will believe that they are listening to what he is saying. I think
as Heidegger did say, that the scandal of philosophy is not that it
tried and failed to solve the problem of the external world but that
it regarded it as a problem. The very fact that I continue to write
what I am writing right now assumes that I am doing something
that others will be able to read and discuss. Humans do
communicate hence they can share their thoughts. I believe that his
apparent mystery is generated by philosophy.
We try to understand vision as if it were caused by "impressions"
for example. We do not realize that this is the beginning of a
pseudo physics, which will not provide us with any real
understanding . I am as certain that my visual consciousness
EXISTS as I am that it would be a calamity for a me if I were
blind. Visual consciousness is visual being-in-the-world. This is the
human condition and I think it seems mysterious because we try
unwittingly to understand it as if it were explainable as part of
physical nature . Consciousness is as consciousness does-- my
visual being-in -the-world is simply a natural condition of a living
human being. If this is metaphysics, then we are metaphysical
beings. To deny the reality of visual consciousness is a world
historical absent mindedness.
Jul 7, 2013
Mathew Cohen
Mathew Cohen The University of Calgary
Thank you for your post, as it raises some important questions, but
unfortunately the questions that it invokes in me threaten to vere
the discussion way off course (not that your comments were off
course, but rather the questions I now have will spur new
discussions, and as I would like to learn from all the contributors
here I would like to keep the discussions linear so that I know what
subject/question people are referring if/when they answer). So you
should be able to find and answer these questions through my
profile. I look forward to hearing your opinion on the questions
below.

Question (1): What is the point of Husserl's epoche? how is it

supposed to accomplish this?

Question (2): Is it possible to perform Husserl's epoche? and why/

(not)?

... not to sound to repetitive, but for those who wish to continue to
contribute to this discussion please do, but know that i have two
other threads now as well.
Jul 7, 2013
William Springer
William Springer University of Texas at El Paso
I would comment as follows: Question (1): What is the point of
Husserl's epoche? how is it supposed to accomplish this?

Question (2): Is it possible to perform Husserl's epoche? And why/

(not)
To question (1) I would comment :My Husserl scholarship, if it can
be called that , is very rusty. I have not read him for years so when
I venture to say anything about the epoche I may be speaking
nonsense. As I recall Husserl was adamant about trying to put all
presuppositions on hold. As I understood it he regarded any
presuppositions not only a danger to his pure phenomenology but
an outright rejection of it. If I am not mistaken the terms
bracketing and reduction" are other names for this suspension
(epoche) of presuppositions. Husserl believed he was starting
something radically new in philosophy. Since Heidegger, Sartre,
Merleau-Ponty and so many others owe so much to him, and hence
to much philosophy in the western world he was probably right.
To Question (2) I would comment: In the preface to his
Phenomenology of Perception Merleau-Ponty makes some acute
observations about the reduction. What I gathered from what he
said there is that the reduction is anything but a return to idealism
for instead of making the world immanent to the subject it teaches
us be filled with wonder at its being there for us. Most memorable
sentences for me in that preface were that the most important
lesson which the reduction teaches is the impossibility of a
complete reduction. and above all that Heideggers being-in-the-
world appears only against the background of the
phenomenological reduction .
I would put it this way. The natural attitude is that the world is
there just as I find it, and the epoche done effectively brings to our
attention that the astonishing fact is that being a human being is
being someone who makes the world be seen, and heard , and
touched, and tasted and cared about, and known. Human beings are
an uncanny animal that are barely beginning to know what they
are. Human embodied consciousness is a tremendous reality--
awesome, grand, noble, pathetic, brutal. Sadly, for the most part
Dasein ist Verfallen as Heidegger observed which is the truth at the
heart of that the myth of the Fall. Can humanity save itself?
Jul 8, 2013
Ronnen Paytan
Ronnen Paytan Independent Researcher
Hi Mathew,

The bottom line first: I believe that the words 'departure' and 'turn'
do not necessarily reflect the true nature of the penomenological
perspectives on phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger in their
final form. The word may be more reflective of the natural need to
differentiate and label in order to avoid complexity.

As Heidegger once said, we need to be very selective in our use of

words as, rightly or wrong, they frame our mindset and tunnel our
thinking. You used in your question the words 'departure' and 'turn'
that are part of the natural scholarly attitude toward
phenomenology, at least from the historical 'who said what to
whom' perspective. As suggested by Fink, Husserl's latest student,
and practically embraced by Husserl in his last years and by
Heidegger after the war, phenomenology in its core is the
transcendence of methodology regardless its scientific,
mathematical, philosophical, religious, cultural, political, and/or
artistic origins. This means that phenomenology and
phenomenological discussions are better off applying
phenomenological practices on themselves. As Heidegger
mentioned in the last pages of being and time, phenomenology is
well suited to vicious circle type problems, we just need by trial
and error to find the entry point. Furthermore, as documented by
Gdel in his philosophical oriented works, unlike mathematically-
oriented methodologies that break by necessity when applied on
vicious circle problems, phenomenology excels when applied on
itself and from the perspective of this discussion, it would be better
to conduct a phenomenological investigation on phenomenology in
order to get to an acceptable answer.

This cannot be done here and must be done individually by each

interested individual, but here is the rudementary and incomplete
set of cues that I can provide to the discussion following my own 5
years journey:

1. Husserl's and Heidegger's works should be regarded in their

whole as part of the scholarly milieu of their time and not as
isolated components.

2. Both had initial fallacies or incompletenesses that were

discovered in later iterations and refinements of applying their
emerging views of phenomenology on the views themselves:
Husserl got into phenomenology while researching the
mathematical natural attitude and Heidegger was initially
interested in the theological natural attitude from a Germanic
perspective - both, for different reasons, expanded gradually their
horizons of interest.

3. The books that they published reflected their views at specific

times and were partly shaped by and were subject to the political
and sociocultural turmoil of the first half of the 20th century - in
some cases their notes may better representatives of their thoughts
than their books.

4. Heidegger's and Husserl's major disagreement of the 1920s-

1930s regarding the interrelation between the natural and the
transcendental attitudes faded as both scholars understood the need
for continuous process of forming and unforming applied on a
specific topic of interest while maintaining simultaneous awareness
of the transcendental and the natural.

5. Heidegger's critique of Husserl in his die grundprobleme der

phnomenologie in 1927 relates to the early purely transcendental
views of Husserl and not his more mature views.

6. I recommend for further reading the following books: (a)

Husserl: 'analyses concerning passive and active syntheses', 'the
sixth cartesian meditation' (edited/written with/by Fink and
therefore controvertial, but nevertheless very important), 'the fifth'
and 'the crisis' (read again after the previous books were read); and
(b) Heidegger: 'the basic problems', 'what is called thinking', 'the
principle of reason', and 'identity and difference'.

Not sure if it is clear enough, 100 years of phenomenology prove

that, unless inhumanly complex structures are used, words are
limited in their ability to express concepts of being.

HTH,

Ronnen
Jul 9, 2013
Cj Nev
Cj Nev Northwestern University
Useful and excellent synopsis, Ronnen, thank you. What I believe
would simplify your/the admittedly "inhumanly complex
structures," would be (under publication in 2014) the very self-
referential or iteration, fractal structure of nature or of all (yet-to-be
proven) phenomena, for which Husserl has laid the groundwork on
the method, drawing transcendentally from both the sciences and
philosophy as no one ever has before or since. Further expounded
upon, a fractal approach would then allow for a valid, even
concrete/tangible, so-called entry point (again to be published in
2014), which I have found Heidegger has unfortunately only
naysayed and then unoriginally redundantly in merely a scholarly
fashion gone off (setting back I am sorry to say) in the usual self-
fulfilling vicious circles with no entry point to add.
Jul 9, 2013
Mathew Cohen
Mathew Cohen The University of Calgary
Ronnen,
Thank you for your analysis, and recommended readings. I had
Fink in mind for my next reading, but also Husserls Arithmetic.
And I have Crisis on my shelf but will do as you recommend and
read it afterwards.

I am in complete agreement with what you spoke about regarding

doing it individually, and nor do I deny that my use of "departure"
to explain Heidegger's position represents the naturalistic attitude.
My own "crisis", and reason for asking this question, came about
in reading up on phenomenological research and being confounded
by the methods that to me seem so far removed. As you said,
phenomenology is to be conducted individually. Understanding
this, but reading contradicting research studies like Giorgi and
Ashforth I felt compelled to bring this discussion forward.
Moreover, to compound my confound, since Giorgi and Ashforth
seem to prefer Heidegger's "rendition" of phenomenology, I
thought I would read into Heidegger a bit more (Being in Time -
quite quickly however) and instead of finding the Husserl and
Heidegger in opposition, I found they were really not incompatible
at all. It seemed that Ashforth and Giorgi (among others) seemed to
be reading into Husserl's statements and Heidegger's criticism from
a metaphysical stand point. Thus the word "departure" and
"metaphysical" in the question only served to bring to a head what
I felt was the interpretation of thinkers in line with the above
researchers. So, this is a long way of saying your critique brings
me relief.

Lastly, your comments regarding the relationship between

Heidegger and Husserl make sense to me. I will continue to hold
those points as a frame of reference as I continue to study their
work ( I have so much more to go). And your words about using
phenomenology for self-referential matters resonates deeply with
me. It is out of a process I have created called the Dendrite Process
that I am now back in school to formally develop it. It was in
trying to find a theoretical framework that included the merits of
geometry, topology, and n-euclidean space that I fell in love with
Husserl.

And with that said, CJ, I'm quite fascinated with fractals for
perhaps similar purposes. Can you recommend any readings by
any chance?

Thanks for both your contributions and help.

Jul 9, 2013
Cj Nev
Cj Nev Northwestern University
Mathew, Because fractals are new on the scene (1970s), the
literature is sparse and gradually growing here and there, so off the
top I would recommend references you may already be familiar
with:

(a) PBS Nova-Fractals-Hunting the Hidden Dimension at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemPnZn54Kw

(b) The father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, website

http://users.math.yale.edu/mandelbrot/ or
http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/
(c) Challenging yet hugely worthwhile, Manfred Schroeder's
"Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws"

(d) Also, an excellent comprehensive account -- Kenneth

Falconer's "Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations [of] and
Applications"

(e) Lastly, for a primary source I should not fail to mention Benoit
Mandelbrot's "Fractals and Chaos"

The field of fractals needs to be expanded upon for solving

problems present maths cannot cohesively solve (e.g., see Reimann
Hypothesis at claymath.org, Lecture by Jeff Vaaler at the
University of Texas (video)). I look forward to reading your views
and findings as you pursue the topic, as true it is most fascinating.
Jul 10, 2013
Ronnen Paytan
Ronnen Paytan Independent Researcher
Hi Cj,

Husserl described phenomena at 3 levels: the constituted world

(subconscious/conscious passive/active structures of awareness
stemming from specific life experience of a specific individual),
the structures of the lifeworld (superposition of constituted worlds
within a specific sociocultural network), and the natural attitude
(superposition of all lifeworlds in specific distinctive aggregate of
sociocultural networks). This fairly complex superstructure is hard
to explain and grasp, and its best partially equivalent is the current
concept of unstructured big data clusters. If you are interested in
the analysis of the lifeworld, I would refer you to the notes of
Schutz who developed them in interaction with Husserl. I have an
unedited text for a book or series of articles on the subject.

nevertheless, I will be interested to learn about your suggested

application of fractal theory as a representation/visualization
means. Yet, I encourage you to learn more about previous attempts
from Husserl to present time to use mathematical methods in areas
they inherently cannot address (i.e. Gdel's work). The
dimensional modeling, either fractional (fractals) or natural
(integer multidimensional) most probably falls under this category

Thanks for the note,

Ronnen
Jul 10, 2013
Cj Nev
Cj Nev Northwestern University
Dear Ronnen, Refreshing to hear your derivation of Husserl's
work, which will prove helpful to me and I will use (print and
place with Husserl's 'stuff') when I return to include him in
construction of a publication I am working on presently, due out in
2014. Thank you as well for pointing out Husserl's efforts
concerning time that I will also incorporate as I go, corresponding
fractals with, as you well explain, Husserl's third level of
phenomena: "The natural attitude (superposition of all lifeworlds in
specific distinctive aggregate of sociocultural networks)." Thanks
also for your reference to the notes of Schutz and for
appreciating/your interest and encouragement in the possible
connection between fractals and Husserl's I consider breakthrough
work. The "fractal theory" would not stop there, it is merely a
viable means that supports concrete/tangible unification of many in
fact all seemingly dichotomous phenomena.
Jul 14, 2013
Germn Bula
Germn Bula Universidad de La Salle
Very briefly: for Heidegger, being is as it appears, therefore
phenomenology is the same as ontology. For Husserl, the
correlation between phenomena and reality is a problem that does
not exist for Heidegger. It is not true that Husserl merely describes
the contents of consciousness: he brackets the natural attitude that
adscribes an external correlation to phenomena and hopes to regain
the outside through a study of pure phenomena (eg, The Idea of
Phenomenology); therefore Husserl does have ontological aims.
Both Husserl and Heidegger have ontological aims, and have a
radical disagreement on whether being=phenomena.
Apr 21, 2014
Rachel Anne Kornhaber
Rachel Anne Kornhaber University of Tasmania, Rozelle Campus
Nazism and Heidegger did influence the state of play during Nazi
Germany and the role that the University of Freiburg played in anti
Jewish sentiment and what influence this played in
phenomenology.
May 7, 2014
Carlos Eduardo Maldonado
Carlos Eduardo Maldonado Universidad del Rosario
Well, certainly Heidegger is strongly inclined to metaphysics -
something that is already clear since his doctoral dissertation and
almost immediately afterwards with his habilitation thesis (on
Duns Scoto).

However, the real turn away from Husserl was "discovered" later
when in 1979 were first published his "Prolegomena zur
Geschcihte des Zeitbegriffs", a seminar Heidegger gave in 1925
(summer semester). Only then was it clear that it was exactly the
interest on time what created a distance between Heidegger and
Husserl.

(I shall not mention that Husserl gave Heidegger his text: "Zur
Phnomenologie des Zeitbewusstseins" (from 1905) in order to be
published and Heidegger kept it for himself for a long while before
he published it, eventually).

Heidegger's critique of Husserl is not irrelevant, at all. Let me, en

passant, tell you this anecdote:
Husserl was invited to give a lecture in London. Heidegger
accompanies his professor and friend to the train station in
Freiburg. As the were walking, Husser was telling Heidegger what
he was planning to teach in London (namely, the Cartesian
Meditations). Then, suddenly Heidegger asks Husserl: "Dear
Professor, and what about history?". And Husserl replies: "Oh,
history! I forgot about it!".

I worked for five years on these subjects while being in Leuven (at
the Husserl Archives), some years ago...
Jun 18, 2014
Gordon Gates
Gordon Gates
Thank you for your wonderful post, Carlos; it brings philosophy to
life.

No one's critique of anything is irrelevant; we all have something

to say that adds to the discussion. Ronnen says in his initial post
above that "unless inhumanly complex structures are used, words
are limited in their ability to express concepts of being." I would
agree that words are inadequate to express concepts of being; more
than that, being may be impossible to capture in concepts. I would
also add that the more structured, conceptual, and linear the
articulation the further from being the words take us. That is why I
prefer the work of Merleau-Ponty to Husserl or Heidegger,
although Merleau-Ponty would not be the same if it were not for
the thinkers who came before him. I prefer work that not only
argues and articulates, but also evokes.

....................

Between Husserl and Heidegger

phenomenological origins
Feeds:
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Comments
Idealism, Noesis/Noema, and Goodbye to Husserl
Solicitation, Dasein and World
Heidegger and Phenomenology
October 10, 2007 by jonathanziemba
Class on October 10th Welcome back from break, everyone.
Today we started Heidegger, sections 8-12 of The History of the
Concept of Time. John began by a quick introduction to Heidegger
himself. As we learned when we began Husserl, Heidegger was
Husserls prize student, and was taken under his wing as the
greatest second-generation phenomenologist. Heideggers Being
and Time (1927), released in Husserls yearbook (like an academic
journal) was perceived by Husserl as a betrayal of the principles of
phenomenology, and hurt their academic and personal relationship.
This was only aggrivated when Heidegger, after having joined the
National Socialist Party in 1933, removed Husserl, a Jewish
convert to Lutheranism, from the University. Whether Heideggers
philosophy is reflective of, or can be understood within, a Nazi
ideology is a point of contention in Heidegger studies.
Despite this tension, indeed break with Husserl, Heidegger was
rooted in phenomenology. Any critique of phenomenology
materializing in the few pages we have read is not a critique from
without, that is, an attack on phenomenology from outside of its
own bounds and with an alternative philosophy in mind, but
instead an immanent critique. Heidegger tells us : We are
making no deduction from the idea of phenomenology but are
reading the principle from its concretion in the research work. and
later, in part b of 8, that the understanding of phenomenology
comes from the research itself, in the direction of its ownmost
maxim, to the matters themselves So we see that Heidegger
understands phenomenology in its deformalized form, its
concrete aspects. This implies a notion of habitation, as John
mentioned, that is crucial to the notion of understanding and
interpretation in Heidegger, and will be present in almost all of the
texts we read (especially the What is Metaphysics? lecture of
1929). This is also important in understand the Abbau and its
logic, the destruction of the history of philosophy that is called
for in Being and Time.
We mentioned the maxim to the things themselves! As John
noted, we are working with the German word Sache here, not
Ding. This is better translated as matters. I think this
distinction is important if we want to keep the World of the
phenomenologist open; Husserl doesnt limit the objects of
phenomenological study to things out-there in the world, but
addresses matters, all things that can be objects of consciousness,
from a tree to freedom to ethnicity. What are these matters for
Heidegger? Well, they are phenomena, as the title of our science
indicates. Phenomenology seems to mean the science of
phenomena, if we break up phainomenon and logos, the two
Greek words that make up the name. But Heidegger, following his
logic of habitation, sees an obscurity in the translation of logos
as science of, and recaptures what he sees as a more original
translation: legein meaning making manifest or letting be seen.
Aristotle, Heidegger claims, understands legein as discursive,
making manifest what is talked about to another party (I have a
cold Look at this dot) Heidegger, however, doesnt want to get
hung up on words and the voice as the essence of logos, and
orients himself to the making manifest that is implied in the
Greek discursive meaning of the word. He doesnt want to think of
logos as necessarily leading to the theoretical apprehension of an
entity by an utterance, but wants to study the very self-
presentation/manifestation required for such an apprehension. So,
when Heidegger talks about logos apophantikos versus logos
semantikos (the two names in Greek in the section beta of part a of
9), he claims that the former is the sense most proper to the logos
of phenomen/ology, as pointing out and letting be seen.
Apophansis has a wider meaning than simply verbal propositions;
Heidegger takes it to mean a certain approach that allows an
encounter with beings. On the side of phenomenon, phainesthai,
the Greek verbal root of phainomenon and phenomenon,
Heidegger interprets as showing itself, making the phenomenon
that which shows itself. Showing can mean several things, as we
discussed in class, and most noted among its meanings are the
seemingly opposed definitions of manifestation and semblance. Is
appearing in the phenomenal sense of the word merely a
semblance of something that lies behind the scenes? Heideggers
answer is clear: only because phainesthai means showing
itself can it also mean merely showing itself as, only looking
like. Only insofar as something in its sense makes a pretense of
showing itself can it pass itself off as (p. 81) Since Heidegger
does not take the road of epistemology, which, for him lives off
the confusion between appearance and semblance, he tasks
himself exclusively to understanding the phenomenon as that
which presents itself.
Phenomenology is therefore letting the manifest in itself be seen
from itself. (85) This letting-be and self-revelation implies a
covered up phenomenon, one that must be let seen by itself, from
itself, and how it is in itself. Heidegger works with such a covering
up, as we will see in the essay on the Essence of Truth, where he
claims that all revealings are also concealings. Phenomena can be
totally undiscovered or buried. This latter sense of concealement is
where Heidegger begins his Being and Time, in which he claims
that the sense of the word Being has been forgotten, covered up,
across the history of philosophy. Phenomenology, if we can
understand it in the Heideggerian sense we have just established, is
the way of unfolding, breaking apart, and, ideally, revealing what
is concealed about this, or any other, phenomenon.
Like this:

Related
Solicitation, Dasein and World
Fink!
Descartes, World, Vor- and Zu-handenheitIn "Heidegger"
Posted in Heidegger, Husserl | 5 Comments
5 Responses
on October 11, 2007 at 1:33 pm | Reply noah37
Im unclear on precisely how Heideggers conception of
phenomena differs from a Husserlian one; and I assume this is an
important site of Heideggers departure from Husserl.
Partly, this uncertainty is because Im not sure that I fully
understand what Heidegger means in claiming that phenomena
show or dont show themselves to us. The language makes it
sound as if phenomena not only have some degree of autonomy in
and of themselves, but also that they have a certain agency or even
agenda to allow or not allow themselves to be seen. (If this is what
Heidegger claimsthough Im not convinced it isthen it seems
quite counter-intuitive to me.)
Would it be correct to say that Husserl, on the other hand, doesnt
give such a degree of autonomy to phenomenon? But how does he
account for them? Does this have to do with the inseparability of
fact/essence? Does Husserl want to say that a phenomenon is
merely constituted by its fact/essence relationship, and thus the
phenomenon cannot be conceived of as autonomous from our
bestowal of sense upon it? But then doesnt his concept of Noema
bestow some autonomy on objects/phenomenon (are these
synonyms?): the object is one thing that can be thought of in many
different ways and that persists amidst our noetic changes (to
quote from Jonathans 10/4 post)?

on October 15, 2007 at 7:24 pm | Reply Desire

I didnt notice your comment until just today, Noah, but maybe its
not too late. Anyway, the way I see it, the difference between
Husserl and Heideggers conception of phenomena is pretty much
exactly how you articulated it in your comment. That is to say, in
Husserls world, objects have no autonomy whatsoever: we (via
sense-bestowal) determine the meanings of objects. For
Heidegger, I think a certain kind of sense-bestowal exists AND
objects/phenomena also have autonomy. The concept of it gives
is useful here because, for Heidegger, objects/phenomena reveal
their meaning inasmuch as we give them their meaning.
What interests me about your question is that, for you, Husserls
account of how we give meaning to things in the world is more
intuitive. Could you elaborate on that a bit? I was just thinking
earlier this morning about the question of which view makes more
intuitive sense (and, I think intuitive sense matters since, you
know, we all participate in this lived experience thing we
should have some sort of account of what it is like). I had
previously read Heidegger for another class, and, at that time, it
made perfect intuitive sense. And then, after reading Husserl, like
you, I was more inclined to believe that I alone determined the
meaning of objects. In any case, I dont have any commitments
yet. But, I am wondering: if, for Heidegger, objects can give
meaning to me, does that mean that he has a hidden commitment to
some sort of metaphysical claim about how objects are (in an
objective sense) in-the-world? I suppose for me, there is some
(obvious) tension between what Husserl claims the aim of
phenomenology is and how Heidegger re-figures that claim.

on October 19, 2007 at 7:28 pm | Reply noah37

Yeah, it does seem that Heideggers autonomous objects are in
some sense metaphysically objective, at least as long as were
talking about physical objects (Im not sure if anyone could make a
plausible case for the objectiveness of the contents of my memory,
for instance.) But, upon further consideration, such a status of
physical objects does seem more intuitive to me. This comes from
the consideration that we cant (unless, perhaps, we try really hard)
bestow any sense upon any object (which in this view would itself
be merely a bestowed sense); we dont fabricate the world around
us from *nothing*. And it is not that our experience of the world is
*only* a product of our collective or individual conditioning either.
Such a view just couldnt account for the fact that (I assume) there
has been a fairly standard vocabulary to describe color in every
language ever. Unless somebody has a really smart alternative
story to tell (though please no brain-in-a-vat-s), this would show
that the difference between the blue and red is something
objective; not just an arbitrary sense that we have decided to
bestow. In this sense, objects that are blue and objects that are red
give this sense of themselves to us. (Perhaps some of us, like our
beloved professor, have an impaired faculty for receiving such
senses.) And this seems right. But does Husserl really think that we
can make blue red?

on October 20, 2007 at 7:10 pm | Reply demographer

Dreyfus at Cal is podcasting his undergrad course on Heidegger, if
readers are interested:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?
seriesid=1906978475

on October 24, 2007 at 10:55 pm | Reply Desire

Noah, I largely agree with you butto your question, Does
Husserl really think that we can make blue red? is interesting. Im
hoping to address this issue in my paper not the specific
example of course, but how/why Husserl might say that we can
have similar accounts of the same phenomena even though we all
bestow our own accounts of objects unto them. I dont think hed
give objects any autonomy the way Heidegger does, but as far as I
can tell, he does seem to think that there is, in fact, some sort of
Objectivity out there and he seems to locate that in OthersI could
be totally mistaken about this, of course, but Ill have more to say
later.
..................

2014.07.35
Search

FRIEDRICH-WILHELM VON HERRMANN

Hermeneutics and Reflection: Heidegger and Husserl on the
Concept of Phenomenology
Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Hermeneutics and Reflection:
Heidegger and Husserl on the Concept of Phenomenology,
Kenneth Maly (tr.), Toronto University Press, 2013. xxx + 152pp.,
$50.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781442640092.
Reviewed byThomas Nenon, University of Memphis
This book consists of three essays in which the author presents
Heidegger's "hermeneutic phenomenology" (in contrast to what he
calls Husserl's "reflective phenomenology"), as developed in two
early lecture courses that have now been published as Volumes
56/56[1] and 17[2] of the Gesamtausgabe and in 7 of Being and
Time[3]. The first, by far the longest, essay is a reading of the 1919
lecture course; the second relies on the 1923/24 lectures; the third
is an interpretation and commentary on the Heidegger's well-
known description of phenomenology in the "Introduction" to BT.
In each of these essays, the guiding theme is the contrast between
Heidegger's phenomenology, which is an enactment of lived
experience itself as "the a- and pre-theoretical domain, which
keeps itself closed off when we are theoretically oriented" (13),
and Husserl's phenomenology. It recounts how Heidegger's
hermeneutic phenomenology takes as its starting point the concrete
involvement of what will come to be called Dasein in the world as
a significant whole in contrast to what von Hermann calls
reflective phenomenology, which he describes as still trapped
within the prejudices of traditional modern philosophy that is
oriented primarily toward theory, which culminates in scientific
knowledge and hence focuses primarily on perception as opposed
to the fullness of engaged practical life. Heidegger's hermeneutic
phenomenology is introduced in each of the essays by way of
contrast to Husserl's reflective phenomenology with a slightly
different emphasis in each of them, while they all at the same time
follow Heidegger in acknowledging the key role that Husserl's
phenomenology played for Heidegger in the development of his
own positions.
In the early 1919 lectures, as laid out in the first essay, such
hermeneutical phenomenology is described as a form of
"understanding looking" (21) that is fundamentally different from
"theoretical knowing, whose known is only things, what is reified,
or what is ob-jectified" (21), including consciousness itself as an
object of reflection. What makes Heidegger's phenomenology
hermeneutic is the fact that "Understanding lookingaccompanies
the sense of enactment of living-experience and is thereby capable
of interpreting the pre-theoretical essence that is own to lived-
experience" (22). It is attuned to the things with which we concern
ourselves as they present themselves to us against the backdrop of
lived experience that is the most basic or original "event" or
"Ereignis" from which hermeneutic phenomenology proceeds.
The contrast is then drawn to Husserlian reflective phenomenology
that (a) remains oriented on theory and thereby misses the crucial
practical dimensions of lived experience (20, 67), so that it (b)
assumes that the primary access to the things around us is
perception upon which all of the other ways in which we encounter
things are founded (32-33, 36, 50), and (c) is enacted by a "pure
ego pole" that "ob-jectifies" instead of living in the acts of lived
experience as consciousness (30, 51). The positive example of such
a lived experience that von Herrmann uses is Heidegger's
description of the lectern that I recognize as such immediately
upon entering the classroom. I do not see first of all a brown object
of a certain size and shape and then later, in a subsequent act, add a
layer or practical relevance to it, which is what he says Husserl's
phenomenology would suggest, but rather, in lived experience, I
recognize it immediately and from the outset as the lectern, a
recognition that it is not founded upon some previous and
independent act of (theoretical) perception, but rather precedes any
subsequent abstractive focus on its physical properties as presented
in perception.
The second essay contrasts Heidegger's notion of phenomenology
as one that takes a different path than Husserl's phenomenology
does in his middle period where it "has de facto become
descriptive, eidetic science of transcendentally pure consciousness"
(91). Husserl's phenomenology, von Herrmann says, with reference
to a quote from Heidegger's text, is guided, "by the predominance
of an empty and thereby fantastical idea of certainty and evidence"
(93). The basic issue, according to Heidegger, is not something
specific to Husserl but to Western philosophy in general, going
back not just to Descartes, but to Aristotle, namely whether the
starting point for investigations into being should be oriented
primarily on beings that do not have the character of the
"possibility of Dasein for a human life" (GA 17, 42) or Dasein
itself. This anticipates, of course, Heidegger's claim later in BT that
the history of philosophy is characterized by a kind of self-
forgottenness of Being due above all to the mistaken starting point
in the search for the structure of being in terms of categories that
apply specifically to things that Dasein is not. He proposes instead
that phenomenology should begin with the experience of our own
existence and derive the structures of that existence, existentials,
from it in order to see how Dasein's understanding of the kinds of
beings that it is not depends above all on its own self-
understanding and how the fundamental structures of those kinds
of beings must rather be explicated in terms of temporality as
Dasein's most fundamental possibility.
In fact, von Herrmann himself points out that Hussserl's Logical
Investigations represent more a breakthrough than a simple
continuation of the unquestioned orientation on certainty and
evidence as pursued by the tradition (94). Husserl's contribution
was to address very directly and refute naturalistic tendencies in
interpreting consciousness, for instance in his well-known essay
"Philosophy as a Rigorous Science" from 1911, but Heidegger
finds Hussserl's refutation of historicism in the same essay lacking.
Von Hermann cites Heidegger's observation that, because of
Husserl's preoccupation with securing valid knowledge, "human
Dasein as such is excluded from the possibility of being
encountered" (97). By contrast, hermeneutic phenomenology, as
what Heidegger in 1919 had called "the pre-theoretical primordial
science of living and living-experience" and in the 1923/24
lectures is now called "the scientific origin of factical life,
ontological phenomenology, and hermeneutic of facticity" (101), is
directed squarely to human life and its concerns as such in its very
historical being. Von Herrmann follows Heidegger in
acknowledging the crucial role and positive role that Husserl has
played in opening up the possibilities of phenomenology as
Heidegger pursues them, but in this brief essay von Herrmann still
associates Husserl more with the tradition than with the new
direction Heidegger is taking. Particularly with regard to this essay,
in order to show just how much Heidegger's emphasis is on the
continuities instead of the differences, it would have been helpful
to quote Heidegger's unequivocal statement that what is called
"reflection" in Husserl is far different from what Descartes or
others in modern philosophy mean by it: Heidegger notes that,
One must pay attention to what reflection is about: about
consciousness with the fundamental character of intentionality.
Reflection is not about psychic [i.e., mental, TN] events but rather
about ways of relating to the objective world. It is therefore a
fundamental confusion to characterize Husserlian phenomenology
as a transcendental psychology, as Scheler does . . . .
Phenomenology is directed not to acts in the old sense, but to new
domains, to the way one relates oneself to things so that that to
which the self-relating is directed is present in it (GA 17, 262).
Moreover, this "way of relating oneself to things" is nothing other
than what Heidegger will call "comportment" in BT.
What Heidegger does object to, but does not emphasize in his
recognition of Husserl as opening up phenomenology as a
possibility, is the way Husserl intends to develops it as a "science
of reason," (GA 17, 263) that still preserves too much of the legacy
of the scientific orientation on evidence, even for the most basic
kinds of truths, like "the truths of religion or art," where truth is
something much more basic than adequacy (GA 17, 98). Von
Herrmann alludes to this point when he notes that, even in
Husserl's final work on the Crisis of European Sciences,[4] Husserl
still reserved a special place for human beings as rational agents
(102).
Most of the third essay follows Heidegger's own lead in 7 of BT
in describing the continuities as much as the differences between
their approaches to phenomenology, while at the same time
emphasizing just how significant those differences are. Heidegger
follows Husserl much of the way in his explanation of the nature of
phenomenology as a philosophical method. Where they depart, as
von Herrmann recounts it, is in Husserl's determination of
phenomenology not only as a method, but also as related above all
to a specific topic. Von Herrmann describes Husserlian
phenomenological philosophy as an analysis "at first . . . of lived-
experiences of pure consciousness, then phenomenology of lived-
experience of transcendental consciousness, namely, transcendental
subjectivity" (110). Heidegger, he says, accepts Husserl's formal
conception of philosophy as a method but differs in two main
ways. The first is related to what von Herrmann sees as the
consequences of Husserl's conception of subjectivity. It is not
something that Heidegger says directly, but von Herrmann reads
Heidegger's emphasis upon allowing the things to show themselves
as they are in themselves as a rebuke of what von Herrmann has
referred to in the first two essays as Husserl's failure to overcome
the modern assumptions associated with science as a theoretical
enterprise. Von Herrmann states, "The thematic object of
Husserlian phenomenology is the life of consciousness with its
lived-experiences, namely acts, and with that which in the acts of
consciousness are given objectively in consciousness" (125), and
he reminds the reader that,
According to his basic approach, Husserl comprehends the pre-
and outside-scientific ways of access as those which he in
summary calls simple sense experience (also life-world
experience): the present-related and making present perception and
its presentiating modifications of the present-related memory of the
present, the past-related recollection, and the future-related
anticipation (expectation). In contrast, Heidegger, on the basis of
his Dasein-approach, calls for, as pre-scientific ways of access, that
which he designates terminologically as comportments of
circumspect caring-for -- of the caring dealing with beings near
which we always reside. (117)
The second main difference is closely related and is one that
Heidegger is himself very explicit about in 7. It concerns not the
method but the appropriate subject-matter for phenomenology. Von
Herrmann describes it as Dasein in "its existential constitution of
being and of the self-related-ecstatic-horizonal disclosure of being
in general" (135), even though these are not the words Heidegger
uses in this section yet, since these are terms that will be
subsequently introduced only in the course of the work itself. What
Heidegger in this early section does say is that the proper topic of
phenomenology is precisely that which for the most part does not
show itself and is most properly in need of elucidation, namely not
beings but the Being of beings (SZ 35) that for the most part
remains concealed. As we have noted above in our discussion of
von Herrmann's second essay, Heidegger comes to the view early
on that the kind of Being that, for the most part and precisely, we
do not face is our own Being, that of Dasein, and the project of BT
is to show how Dasein's Being is above all and most basically a
form of self-relation that is normally concealed to us but is at the
same time the ground of how everything -- we ourselves and the
beings within the world that we are not -- shows up for us.
In this essay, von Herrmann refers to these structures more than he
explains them, and he assumes that the reader is familiar with at
least the basic outlines of the analyses that Heidegger presents in
BT just as the other two chapters focus more on presenting
differences between Husserl and Heidegger than on explaining to
the uninitiated what the various terms mean that Heidegger
introduces along the way as he attempts to avoid pitfalls associated
with standard philosophical terms like "objectivity," "subjects,"
"knowledge," and "consciousness," with which most philosophical
readers are more familiar. So, although these studies will be clear
to scholars already steeped in Hussserlian and Heideggerian
terminology and familiar with their basic positions, they do not
serve as ready introductions to the texts and topics they discuss.
Other books by this author that the translator cites in his
introduction serve that purpose much better.
There is no doubt that von Herrmann is one of the world's most
knowledgeable scholars and careful and sympathetic readers of
Heidegger. I should also note that I learned much from his
thoughtful readings of Heidegger, Fichte, and Kant in many
seminars he held in Freiburg that I had the privilege of attending.
Hence it is no surprise that his presentations of Heidegger's project
and the steps along the way in its development as traced out in
these essays are accurate and compelling. However, his readings of
Husserl are a little less charitable than Heidegger's own statements
about Husserl in the texts that von Herrmann interprets in this
book. I use the term "charitable" advisedly because the nature of
Husserl's work lends itself to so many different interpretations.
Husserl's work is pivotal not just in the sense that it had a great
impact on so many subsequent thinkers in twentieth century
philosophy, including perhaps most notably Heidegger, and
because his starting point was traditional in just the ways that von
Herrmann outlines, but it is also pivotal in the sense that there are
important turning points within his thinking as he constantly
expands the range of the topics his phenomenology addresses and
introduces new distinctions and refinements along the way that end
up taking him in a very different direction than the tradition he
began with. Heidegger himself was well aware of this. So, for
instance, it is true that Husserl in the Logical Investigations
presents his work as exercises in the grounding of science, and the
model is clearly the natural sciences. Throughout his early work,
he continues to present phenomenology as the philosophical basis
for an Erkenntnistheorie, an epistemology or theory of knowledge
whereby the kind of knowledge that is meant here is theoretical
knowledge and the most powerful example of it is the kind of
knowledge produced in modern natural sciences. The most
common examples of knowledge he presents not just in his early
works but throughout his career are descriptions of perceptions of
physical objects ("Dinge" or "things," as he calls them). So when
von Herrmann points to Husserl's phenomenology as still in the
sway of modern philosophical assumptions about knowledge,
perception, and objectivity, he has more than enough passages in
Husserl's works to which he can point. Moreover, even in his latest
work, Husserl retains the traditional language of subjectivity,
consciousness, and reflection that at the very least bring with them
the connotations and assumptions from the history of modern
philosophy that Husserl himself often finds himself struggling to
work against. Heidegger from the very outset has decided to avoid
these terms and attempt to come up with new ones that better fit
the phenomena as he sees them.
On the other hand, though, Husserl's phenomenological
investigations took him in directions fundamentally different from
those of modern natural science as he began to take seriously some
of Dilthey's insights into the differences between the natural and
the spiritual (geistige) worlds. By the time Husserl was composing
the manuscripts that would be published only after his death as the
Ideas II,[5] he had come to see that in the attitude in which we live
our daily lives, the "personalistic attitude," the things we encounter
within the "surrounding world (Umwelt)" are encountered not
primarily in terms of their bare perceptual properties, but rather in
terms of their relevance, their uses and values to us. The
surrounding world of our daily lives is a world in which a person is
not primarily interested in theoretical knowledge for its own sake,
but rather
conducts himself as an acting human being in practical life, makes
use of the objects of his Umwelt, shapes them to his purposes, and
thereby evaluates them according to aesthetic, ethical, utilitarian
viewpoints, or in which he engages in a communicative
relationship to his fellow human beings, talks to them, writes
letters to them, reads about them in the newspaper, associates with
them in common acts, makes promises to them, etc. (Ideas II, 181-
2)
It contains
not mere things (Dinge), but use-objects (clothes, household
utensils, weapons, tools), works of art, literary products, items used
in religious or legal actions (seals, official necklaces, coronation
insignia, ecclesiastic symbols etc.); and it contains not only
individual persons: the persons are rather members of
communities, of higher-order personal unities that lead their lives
as a whole, maintain themselves as individuals, continually enter or
leave the communities across time, which have their own
communal characteristics, ethical and legal orders, their own ways
of functioning, their dependencies on circumstances, orderly
patterns of change, their ways of developing or remaining constant
over time depending on the circumstances. (Ideas II, 182)
One could easily include lecterns here as well.
Hence the differences between Husserl's phenomenology in the
Ideas II and Heidegger's descriptions of our encounters with things
around us in lived experience are at this stage not nearly as great as
the first essay would suggest, and since Heidegger had access to
the manuscripts on which the subsequent publication was based, he
knew this. This is perhaps why Heidegger himself refers to Natorp,
Rickert, and Windelband much more often and critically than to
Husserl in these lectures. He does say that Husserl would describe
the experience of the lectern any differently than he does.
In the Ideas II, Husserl still does employ the notion of Fundierung
and says that cultural objects like lecterns and tools and that
persons are founded upon physical aspects of those objects.
However, this does not mean that we encounter them first
independently in terms of their perceptible properties and only
subsequently recognize them as tools or people, but rather that we
must see something with some specific shapes and sizes consistent
with being a hammer or being a human being if we are going to
recognize them as tools or as persons, but not that what it is to be a
tool or a person is in any way reducible to the physical properties
of those things. The perceptible properties are strata, moments,
non-independent components of the experienced things that are
nonetheless an essential part of experiencing them, even if we
never experience them on their own except through abstraction.
Husserl is also very clear that the process of "naturalizing" objects,
"objectifying" them in the sense of modern science is just such an
"abstraction" (Ideas II, 25) from the concrete experience of a thing
that includes, instead of excluding, their practical and aesthetic
characters prior to this abstractive process. In this sense, the
naturalistic attitude is not our natural attitude, but rather an
abstraction from it. This is also consistent with fundamental
themes from Heidegger's work. Why then does Heidegger,
especially in the 1923/24 lecture, continue to criticize Husserl's
over-reliance on perception as a model for our comportment not
just in the theoretical sphere, but in the axiological and practical
spheres as well?
I do not think it is because he believes that Husserl holds the view
that the only genuine properties of things are their physical,
perceptible properties. I also do not think it is because he believes
that Husserl does not recognize the priority of the practical and
evaluative aspects of experience in our daily lives. Rather, I think
the answer is that Husserl continues to use the model of intention
and fulfillment/disappointment through intuitions according to the
model of perceptual experience in his grounding of values and
goods. Husserl's relatively recently published lectures on ethics
from 1920 and 1924[6] -- precisely the period in which Heidegger
was holding his own lecture courses in Freiburg as well -- make
this point very explicitly. So when Heidegger recognizes that
Husserl's conception of evidence "is vastly superior to everything
else that has ever been said about it" (GA 17, 272) and
acknowledges that Husserl sees that each domain of objects,
including values and goods, has a specific evidence corresponding
to its content (GA 17, 273), he still thinks that there is a problem
because Husserl's orientation on confirmation and facts about these
kinds of issues along the lines of the perceptual model misses
"understanding life itself in its authentic Being and responding to
thequestion concerning the character of its Being" (GA 17, 274-
75), not as a series of position-takings to be confirmed or
disconfirmed through intuitions, as Husserl would have it, but as a
project a self-relation in which Dasein projects itself in a way that
facts-of-the-matter cannot ground, as a being with Existenz as its
basic form of Being. This is a genuine difference between
Heidegger and Husserl,[7] and I think that this is the real point that
Heidegger is aiming at both in the 1923/24 lecture and in 7 of BT.
In sum, then, I think that von Herrmann is correct in the way he
outlines how Heidegger is attempting to chart out an entirely new
course for phenomenology that is indeed different from Husserl's,
even on the most charitable reading of Husserl, and that the
contrast between Heidegger's phenomenology and many of the
most basic assumptions of modern philosophy is indeed as stark as
von Herrmann portrays it. However, I also think that Husserl's
phenomenology in many ways in his middle and later periods was
also well on the way to overcoming some of these assumptions on
its own, and that Heidegger was able to recognize this in spite of
what he maintained were nonetheless crucial limitations that
Husserl himself was ultimately never able to overcome.

[1] Martin Heidegger, Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie: Frhe

Freiburger Vorlesungen, Kriegsnotsemester 1919 und
Sommersemester 1919, in Gesamtausgabe, Volume 56/57, ed.
Bernd Heimbchel. Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1987.
References to the Gesamtausgabe will be cited as GA followed by
the volume, then the page number.
[2] Martin Heidegger, Einfhrung in die phnomenologische
Forschung: Marburger Vorlesung, Wintersemester 1923/24 in
Gesamtausgabe, Volume 17, ed. by Friedrich Wilhelm von
Hermann. Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1994.
[3] Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit. Niemeyer: Tbingen, 1972.
The page numbers of this and subsequent editions of this work are
included in the margins of the translation of this work into English
as Being and Time and in its publication as Volume 2 of the
Gesamtausgabe, so this work will be cited as BT followed by the
page number.
[4] Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europischen Wissenschaften
und die transzendentale Phnomenologie,Husserliana, Band VI
(den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff 1962). Translated by David Carr as
The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology (Northwestern University Press: Evanston, 1954).
[5] Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phnomenologie und
phnomenologischen Philosophy. Zweites Buch. Husserliana,
Band IV (den Haag: Nijhoff 1952). Translated by R. Rojcewicz
and A. Schuwer as Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and
Phenomenological Philosophy, Book II (Kluwer: Dordrecht, 1991).
Citations will follow the page numbers of the German edition,
which are listed in the margins of the English translation.
[6] Edmund Husserl, Einleitung in die Ethik, Vorlesungen
Sommersemester 1920/1925, Husserliana Volume XXXVII, edited
by Henning Peucker. Dordrecht: Kluwer 2004.
[7] For a fuller treatment of this point, see: Thomas Nenon,
"Martin Heidegger and the Grounding of Ethics," in: Lester
Embree and Thomas Nenon (eds.), Husserl's Ideen. (Dordrecht:
Springer, 2013), pp. 176-193.

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Phenomenology - Martin Heidegger

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Martin Heidegger (18891971) was a student of Husserl. Before

that, he was a theology student, interested in much more concrete
matters of human existence than his teacher, and his questions
concerned how to live and how to live "authentically"that is,
with integrity, in a complex and confusing world. His use of
phenomenology was subservient to this quest, although the quest
itself soon transcended the phenomenological method. Heidegger's
phenomenology is most evident in his first (and greatest) book,
Sein und Zeit (1927; English trans. Being and Time, 1962). Like
his teacher Husserl, Heidegger insists that philosophical
investigation begin without presuppositions. But Husserl, he says,
still embraced Descartes's basic picture of the world, assuming that
consciousness, or "the mind," was the arena in which
phenomenological investigation took place. Such a philosophy
could not possibly be presuppositionless. So Heidegger abandons
the language of mind, consciousness, experience, and the like, but
nevertheless pursues phenomenology with a new openness, a new
receptivity, and a sense of oneness with the world.
Heidegger's early work is defined by two themes: first, Heidegger
displays a profound anti-Cartesianism, an uncompromising holism
that rejects any dualism regarding mind and body, any distinction
between subject and object, and the linguistic separation of
"consciousness," "experience," and "mind." This also demands a
reconsideration of the Cartesian thesis that our primary relationship
to the world is one of knowledge. Second, Heidegger's early
philosophy is largely a search for authenticity, or what might better
be described as "own-ness" (Eigentlichkeit), which we can
understand, with some qualification, as personal integrity. This
search for authenticity will carry us into the now familiar but ever-
renewed questions about the nature of the self and the meaning of
human existence.
To ensure that we do not fall into Cartesian language, Heidegger
suggests a new term (the first of many). Dasein (literally, "being-
there") is the name of this being from whose perspective the world
is being described. Dasein is not a consciousness or a mind, nor is
it a person. It is not distinguished from the world of which it is
aware. It is inseparable from that world. Dasein is, simply, "Being-
in-the-World," which Heidegger insists is a "unitary phenomenon"
(not being the world). Thus, phenomenology becomes ontology
(the nature of being) as well.
Being-in-the-World is not primarily a process of being conscious
or knowing about the world. Science is not the primary concern of
Dasein. Dasein's immediate relation to the world is better captured
in the image of the craftsman, who "knows his stuff," to be sure,
but might not be able to explain it to you nor even know how to
show it to you. What he can dowhat he does dois engage in
his craft. He shows you that he knows how to do this and that by
simply doing it. This knowing how is prior, Heidegger tells us, to
knowing that. In effect, our world is essentially one extended craft
shop, a world of "equipment" in which we carry out various tasks
and only sometimesoften when something goes wrongstop to
reflect on what we are doing and look at our tools as objects, as
things. They are, first of all, just tools and material to be used, and
in that sense we take them for granted, relying on them without
noticing them. Our concept of "things" and our knowledge of them
is secondary and derivative.
Thus the notion of Dasein does not allow for the dualism of mind
and body or the distinction between subject and object. All such
distinctions presuppose the language of "consciousness." But
Heidegger defends an uncompromising holism in which the self
cannot be, as it was for Descartes, "a thinking thing," distinct from
any bodily existence. But, then, what is the self? It is, at first,
merely the roles that other people cast for me, as their son, their
daughter, their student, their sullen playmate, their clever friend.
That self, the Das Man self, is a social construction. There is
nothing authentic, nothing that is my own, about it. The authentic
self, by contrast, is discovered in profound moments of unique
self-recognitionnotably, when one faces one's own death. And so
Heidegger's phenomenology opens up the profoundly personal
arena of existentialist phenomenology.

Read more: Phenomenology - Martin Heidegger - World, Self,

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Phennomenological Heidegger & Husserl
Updated on October 18, 2011

Phenomenology is a method used by Husserl and then his student

Heidegger to carry out philosophy. Their approach though is
extremely different. Husserl, like Rene Descartes, thinks we need
to start philosophy from a firm foundation without presuppositions;
from there we can gain universal knowledge. Husserl is focused on
epistemology. Heidegger believes that ontology is more
fundamental. To analyze things-in-themselves and being first.
Phenomenology is the study of the origin of phenomena (things) in
our lived experience. Husserl thinks we are capable of being
unbiased, neutral and impartial when we study things. Heidegger
believes this to be impossible. For Heidegger, humans always have
an interest, words already carry a world of meaning, and thus we
are always in a context.

Husserl

Husserls definition of phenomenology is a descriptive theory of

the essence of pure transcendental experiences which has its
own justification., (Macann, Christopher. P. 31.). Thus for
Husserl the phenomenological method is a method of
transcendental reflection, and a considerable amount of time is
spent establishing and justifying the relevant concept of
reflection., (Macann, Christopher. P. 31). Reflection in the sense
where the self becomes an object of reflection. In phenomenology
we are then to look at our looking. We do not just look at the
object, but look at our looking at the object. Scientists do not look
at their presuppositions and biases. This attempt to find how to
know involves consciousness. He is referring to the fact that
consciousness is consciousness of something. Consciousness is
the foundation of reality in its entirety., (Macann, Christopher. P.
32). Consciousness is always directed towards something and it is
always an act. Thus we must look at the nature of consciousness
and how it directs itself and at the interrelationship between subject
and object.
We can look at things in the external world, try to be objective,
describe its characteristics and properties. The important use of
phenomenology is that it goes one step beyond that and looks at
how we are looking; looks at how the acts of consciousness works.
Any act of consciousness can be looked at whether it be memory,
perception or dreams. In regards to memory, phenomenology
would be the bringing to light the meaning-bestowing activity of
remembering rather than focusing on the memory as such.
(Macann, Christopher. P. 34).
I ask myself how the object in question comes to be posited with
the meaning which adheres to it as an object I make the act of
imagining or remembering the object of a specific
phenomenological investigation with a view to specifying the
essence of imaginative or memorial consciousness.
This involves the epoche; a state of suspension, bracketing and
setting aside all presuppositions. It is the ego which, while it
suspends all beliefs about the reality of the world on the grounds
that these are not indubitable, discovers itself as the only
apodictically certain being., (Paris Lecture, p. 4). The
phenomenological epoche is the methodology through which I
come to understand myself as that ego and life consciousness in
which and through which the entire objective world exists for me.
(Paris Lectures. P. 8). Everything in the world, all spatio-temporal
being, exists for me because I experience it, because I perceive it,
remember it, think of it in any way, judge it, value it, desire it.
(Paris Lecture. P. 8).
Starting with an absolute foundation seems only logical. That this
foundation is the ego also makes sense since it is really hard to
deny that which basically creates existence for us. Without
consciousness there would be no I and thus nothing else.
Therefore it is important to acknowledge the I as the interpreter
of all things, you cannot escape the fact that it is your subjective
person that thinks about anything. If we can take anything from
Descartes, it is the idea that the I is fundamental and undeniable.
Husserl also has a valid point that consciousness is an intentional
act. This appears to be an adequate description of how the
consciousness is, and it is vital that we look at these acts as objects
as well when considering how we know things at all. Of course the
ego that we are has been socialized and has naively absorbed vast
amounts of interpretation given to us, has may presupposition and
biases. The phenomenological reduction then is vital to look at
things more clearly. The attempt to eliminate all presuppositions,
biases and so forth is very important when looking at anything.
However, it does not seem conceivable that we could eliminate all
of them, as we could not possibly be aware of all of them.
Nevertheless, the process is important in eliminating all the clutter
and letting us become as objective and neutral as possible.
This is contrast to everyday existence which Husserl states is nave
for it is the immersion in the already-given world and consists of
experiencing, thinking, valuing, acting. (Paris Lecture. P. 36). All
of which do not explain the intentional acts from which ultimately
everything originates. (Paris Lectures. P. 36). In the natural
attitude, experience is taken to be a presentation of the object (or
the world) as it is in itself, that is, of the object as a substance
possessing properties of one kind or another. (Macann,
Christopher. P. 33). We can see then when it comes to knowledge
and to the gaining there of (for the sciences) Husserls
phenomenological method makes us look at how he know things,
and makes us acknowledge and bracket presuppositions to be more
objective. Thus phenomenology according to Husserl is useful in
gaining any knowledge. It is refining our ability to reason, and
expanding it to reflect on our own thought process.

Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (Routledge

Classics)
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Heidegger

Heideggers phenomenology is concerned with ontology. It has no

real application in improving the method of how we gain
knowledge, because Heidegger believes the question of Being is
more fundamental than how we know things. For Heidegger
phenomenology is to let that which shows itself be seen from
itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself.
(Macann, Christopher. P 69). All ontology of the past, no matter
how rich and tightly knit a system of categories it has at its
disposal, remains fundamentally blind and perverts its innermost
intent if it has not previously clarified the meaning of Being
sufficiently and grasped this clarification as its fundamental task.
(Being and Time, p. 53). Most ontology theories start with an
assumption of Being and go from there, and never really delve into
Being itself. According to Heidegger most ontology theories cover
over Being, to the point that Heidegger states Ontology is possible
only through phenomenology. (Being and Time, p. 84).
To relate to this question of Being though he believes we must look
at it through our own being-there or Dasein. Since questions are a
seeking. Every seeking takes its direction beforehand from what is
sought (Being and Time,p. 45), the questions also say something
about those who ask them. An important aspect of our Dasein is
that fact that we question. Dasein is ontologically distinguished
by the fact that in its Being this being is concerned about its very
being. (Being and Time, p. 54). In our average-everydayness we
have a pre-understanding of Being because we are part of it. This
natural attitude is here our starting place.
In place of the Husserlian procedure which moves from the world
of the natural attitude up to a higher, transcendental plane with a
view to bringing to light the transcendental structures constitutive
of the objectivity of the entities encountered in the natural attitude,
we find an alternative procedure which moves from the ontic level
down to a deeper, ontological plane with a view to bring to light
the ontological structures constitutive of the being of the entities in
question. (Macann, Christopher. P. 63.)
Part of our being-in-the-world is throwness. We find we are always
in a context which already has meaning attached to it, a particular
time, place and so forth. It is important to Heidegger to look into
the structures that make us human. Only when the fundamental
structures of Dasein are adequately worked out with explicit
orientation toward the problem of Being will the previous results
of the interpretation of Dasein receive their existential
justification. (Being and Time, p. 60).
Heidegger begins by looking at our average everydayness, to
reveal how Dasein is in-the-world. Dasein is unique in that it has
death awareness and therefore has the perception of time. Death
being the possibility that cancels all possibilities which then causes
fear and anxiety. In response to this we alienate ourselves and let
ourselves become detached. Technology as a way of revealing
being brings us farther away from ourselves and thus from Being.
Heidegger, unlike Husserl, thinks Descartes helps Being become
hidden with the centre focused on I.
Inspecting our Dasein and how we live is a useful thing to do. Out
of this analysis comes his ideas on how we relate to technology, art
and the environment. Art reveals Being, but reflects our being as
well. For Heidegger we cannot be completely objective and get
out of ourselves. Later Heidegger realizes that looking through
Dasein might not be the way to find Being, but it does help us
understand ourselves. He then talks about how we should let Being
reveal itself to us, as in through art. Like a poem that speaks to
you.
We fall into everydayness when we hide from Being. What we
should be doing is living in Care. Being at home in our
environment, and taking care. This element as stated above is
rather existential in nature; mostly because he does talk about how
we are in the world. Death awareness gives our awareness of time.
This being aware of the future and looking to the future makes us
have concern or Care for it. Things that disrupt us out of
everydayness and make us wonder about things are the failure of
tools, certain moods, and death awareness. We can probably all
relate to these as being accurate to our human nature. It is part of
our nature (instrumentality) to just use tools. I for instance use a
computer directly for all my papers. I choose to do so, because
typing flows with my consciousness, (Heidegger would point out
that we should not limit our possibilities when we choose a piece
of technology). When my computer fails (as it did recently) this
startles me out of my flow of awareness. Death awareness, as when
someone you know dies or when you are confronted with an
ailment that makes you aware of your mortality naturally that is
when fundamental questions smack you in the face. As do moods;
depression makes almost anyone philosophical. All these make you
step back and reflect on things. This is not like Husserls
transcendental reflection though, you dont pull yourself out of
being and look down at yourself objectively. You are startled out of
your everydayness and feel the need to re-evaluate everything.
In this evaluating of lived experience Heidegger outlines what is
authentic and inauthentic. Authenticity is recognized in our
temporality and anxiety and moving into a mode of caring as a
result. Inauthenticity gets caught up in time, flees as a result of
anxiety and falls into everydayness. When one is in the mode of
caring one recognizes the possibility of choices out there and has
concern over how to interact in the world. When one is caught in
everydayness, they take the meaning given to them, and fall into
calculative thinking which does not have a concern for the
environment around them. Thus we can see how technology in
everydayness can have negative consequences as opposed to taking
a caring approach where one is naturally concerned with the
environment, as it is their environment, their home. This comes out
in his notion of dwelling, which he uses the word in away that
brings out the aspect of our making ourselves at home. It is not
really impractical, in that these are both modes that we take; both
are possibilities. Sometimes it is easy to agree that technology,
fixed ideas, and abstract entities bring us away form lived
experience. They almost kill the lived experience. Thus talking in
the way Heidegger does through our lived experience, describing
what is common to Dasein reveals more about how we actually are
than does flat theories. On the other side though, as pointed out
above, Husserls phenomenology aides us in broadening the way
we gain knowledge, and to look at that whole process. One tells us
about how we are, and the other how we know. The fact that we do
not find Being should not disillusion us, since the searching itself
reveals our being (as does art, poems, music). And reflection on
our being aids us in how we live and relate to other beings. Which
is important in that we are always in relation to other beings.
Also an important element in Heideggers phenomenology is
language and the analysis thereof. It is an example of how we are
born into a context, all the words we use to describe thing have a
set meaning, and a personal meaning to ourselves that evolves.
Thus it is an important process to understand how we use these
words and what there meaning is. So Heidegger is very particular
of the words he chooses, and there history.

Being and Time (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

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Conclusion

Both Heidegger and Husserl use the phenomenological method,

but each for a different purpose and going in different direction.
One, however, really does not have to exclusively choose
epistemology over ontology or vice versa. They can be done
together, and thus both reveal interesting valid views. Both
describe what they are discussing; Heidegger describes the nature
of Dasein, and Husserl the nature of consciousness. Both carry out
an analysis of these aspects quite well. Both are going through
lived experience, looking at things-in-themselves, and view things
thus empathetically. Husserl diverges into a more detailed into the
theory of intentionally, the acts of consciousness as that is his base.
And a main difference is Husserls belief in the eidetic reduction,
which Heidegger think is not possible. Heidegger as Dasein is his
base, goes more into Daseins nature. He thinks the reduction is
useless since we are already in a world we must look through
ourselves to see what makes us the way we are. Thus both are
useful in broadening the perspective in different areas.
Phenomenology, as a method, is useful in that it looks through
things as the lived experience. And really, we must acknowledge
that how we see things and how we know things comes from our
being or our ego; therefore it is only logical that we look through
things that way. But while looking though our humanness, we must
be aware that we are doing so. Phenomenology is great for looking
at things in a more useful angle, and broadens our perspective on
things. It can be used for any human experience. Its only limitation
and our limitation anyway, are that it cannot claim to evaluate
anything out of our human experience. We cannot claim to know
for instance what it is like to be a tree, like some environmentalists
claim to attempt (They criticize people for being to
anthropocentric.). It really is the only way we can view things
whether we like it or not. Any theory we create is created from our
lived experience, and then logically stretched to the rest of the
universe- which is an assumption. Phenomenology merely
recognizes the limitation and does not stretch its analysis beyond it.
It also though pays critical attention to its own process to prevent
such assumptions.
"Phenomenology, a 20th century philosophical movement
dedicated to describing the structures of experience as they present
themselves to consciousness, without recourse to theory,
deduction, or assumptions from other disciplines such as the
natural sciences. ...

What Husserl discovered when he contemplated the content of his

mind were such acts as remembering, desiring, and perceiving, in
addition to the abstract content of these acts, which Husserl called
meanings. These meanings, he claimed, enabled an act to be
directed toward an object under a certain aspect; and such
directedness, called intentionality, he held to be the essence of
consciousness. "

"Literally, phenomenology is the study of phenomena:

appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience,
or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in
our experience. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as
experienced from the subjective or first person point of view."
..................
Existential phenomenology
Basic themes of existential phenomenology are lived
experience,modes of being, ontology, and lifeworld.

In his last work The Crisis of the European Sciences (1936),

Husserl had already turned phenomenological analysis away from
the transcendental ego and consciousness, to the prereflective
lifeworld of everyday experience. Especially Heidegger and
Merleau-Ponty radicalized this turn toward the existential world as
we live and experience it.

With Heidegger this turn toward the lived world became an

ontological rather than an epistemological project. Instead of
asking how the being (essence) of things are constituted in
consciousness Heidegger asked how the being of beings (things)
show themselves to us as a revealing of Being itself. For Heidegger
the phenomenological question became: How can we let that what
shows itself be seen in the very way that it shows itself from itself?
Phenomenology requires of its practitioners a heedful attunement
to the modes of being of the ways that things are in the world.
Heideggers existential phenomenology is also often referred to as
ontological phenomenology (concerned with being) while
Husserls transcendental phenomenology is epistemological
(concerned with knowledge and the cogito).
Merleau-Ponty provides an existential interpretation of Husserls
program in his Preface to the Phenomenology of Perception.
Instead of Husserls description of a disembodied consciousness
that constitutes the meaning of things at the ideal level of the
transcendental ego, Merleau-Ponty describes consciousness as
embodied awareness of primordial experience. Consciousness is
existence in and toward the world through the body. While
Husserls phenomenology is oriented to transcendental essences,
Merleau-Pontys phenomenology is existential, oriented to lived
experience, the embodied human being in the concrete world. The
purpose of phenomenological analysis for Merleau-Ponty is not the
intuition of essences but rather it is concentrated upon re-
achieving a direct and primitive contact with the world. Instead of
striving for certain knowledge Merleau-Ponty believed that
phenomenological inquiry can never yield indubitable knowledge.
The most important lesson that the reduction teaches us, he says,
is the impossibility of a complete reduction. While Mearleu-
Ponty held a chair in psychology and pedagogy, for him
phenomenological method resembles more closely an attitude than
a psychological research method: Phenomenology can be
practiced and identified as a manner or style of thinking We
shall find in ourselves, and nowhere else, the unity and true
meaning of phenomenology Phenomenology is accessible only
through a phenomenological method.

...............
Transcendental phenomenology
Basic themes of transcendental phenomenology are
intentionality, eidetic reduction, and constitution of
meaning.

By transcendental phenomenology we refer primarily to the work

of Edmund Husserl and his early assistants Edith Stein and Eugen
Fink. Husserls pathbreaking work on phenomenology inspired the
thinking of many scholars and the development of various
movements. Husserl often used the words transcendental and
phenomenology interchangeably to describe the special method
of the eidetic reduction by means of which the phenomena are
described. Through the method of imaginative variation, (examples
of instantiation, and comparative examination) the invariant or
eidetic aspects of a particular phenomenon are explicated.

Husserl described phenomenology as the rigorous science of all

conceivable transcendental phenomena. All knowledge should be
based on absolutely certain insights. But the rigor of the method of
phenomenology is interpreted philosophically rather than in terms
of any elaborate, objective procedures of the physical and natural
sciences. The natural sciences start from a complex set of
presuppositions, frameworks and perspectives of knowledge, but
these are not questioned by the sciences themselves. For Husserl,
phenomenology is a rigorous, human science precisely because it
investigates the way that knowledge comes into being and clarifies
the assumptions upon which all human understandings are
grounded.

Husserl borowed the notion of intentionality from Brentano in

order to explain the intentional structure of all consciousness. By
intentionality he meant that all our thinking, feeling, and acting are
always about things in the world. All conscious awarenesses are
intentional awarenesses; all consciousness is consciousness-of-
something. Transcendental phenomenology is therefore a
phenomenology of consciousness, and intentional analysis is
always constitutive analysis: an explication of how the meanings of
things are constituted in and by consciousness, or the cogito.

The methods of reduction and the constitution of meaning are two

aspects of phenomenological reflection. First the transcendental
reduction is the moment of withdrawal from the natural attitude
and from the everyday world toward the intersubjective level of the
transcendental ego; second, the constitution of meaning is the
moment of returning to the world from consciousness as it shows
itself in consciousness. As a result, transcendental phenomenology
could also be called constitutive phenomenology.

A contemporary exponent of Husserls transcendental

phenomenology is Amadeo Giorgi. He too speaks about
phenomenology as a rigorous science. He criticizes the interpretive
approaches to phenomenology. In the view of Giorgi
phenomenological inquiry should be a descriptive method, since it
is through analysis and description of how things are constituted in
and by consciousness that we can grasp the phenomena of our
world.
..............
Existential phenomenology
Existential phenomenology is not structured by the complex
concern for reason and the theory of science so prominent in
constitutive phenomenology. Existential phenomenology draws
ultimately upon the mundane reflective-descriptive spirit of the
Logical Investigations as well upon the intensified interest in the
1920s and 1930s in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, the latter urging a
new signification for the word existence. The immediate
occasion, however, is a misconstrual of Martin Heideggers Being
and Time. This incomplete masterpiece is actually not devoted to
human existence but rather fundamental ontology.
The old word ontology had been revived by Husserl to name
eidetic accounts of objects and their regions; realistic
phenomenologists continue that usage, and Husserl investigates the
regional ontologies of nature, body, psyche and culture in Ideas II.
Attempting to radicalize constitutive phenomenology, Heideggers
work is ontology because it explicates the Being of beings (Sein
der Seienden) and fundamental because it seeks grounds beyond
the mundane regional ontologies recognized by Husserl. The work
contains an existential analytic of human being or Dasein, not
for a philosophical anthropology but as a means to this
fundamental ontology.
Dasein also translated as existence or, in the early French
translations of Henri Corbin, ralit humaine is the being where
the world is disclosed and the being whose mode of being is to
understand Being, to bring it and related matters to light through
seeing rather than constructing, and to find words for such matters.
Dasein, Heidegger says, is being-in-the-world. This is not the
world referred to in the positive sciences that Husserl emphasized
even in Die Krisis, but rather the world as a set of everyday
concerns and purposes, the world in which equipment is used and
talk goes on. Dasein finds itself thrown into a situation not of its
choosing; it is concerned with the future; it is for the most part
distracted; and, deep down, it is anxious before its most extreme
possibility its own nothingness. But Dasein can heed the call of
its own inmost possibility to live authentically and resolutely. Such
terms were also used by Heidegger to support National Socialism
during the 1930s, but they disappeared from his writing after the
war, when he completed his turning (Kehre) from the oblique
approach through Dasein to the direct thinking of Being.
Being was always Heideggers central issue. The third division of
Part I of Sein und Zeit was to have gone beyond Dasein to show
how the meaning of Being is time, but that division was not
written, which made it even easier to construe the analytic of
Dasein as philosophical anthropology, a construal that Heidegger
emphatically challenged in his Brief ber den Humanismus
(Letter on Humanism) (1947).
...............
Heidegger's Phenomenology and Human Excellence
By Bill Meacham
Copyright 2014 William Meacham, Ph.D. Permission to
reproduce is granted provided the work is reproduced in its
entirety, including this notice. Contact the author at
http://www.bmeacham.com.
Click here for the PDF version, better for printing and reading
offline.
Contents
Introduction
Husserls Phenomenology
Heideggers Phenomenology
A Phenomenological Observation
What They Tell Us
Authenticity
Excellence
References
About the Author
Revision History

Introduction
Martin Heidegger was one of the most influential philosophers of
the 20th century. His work, firmly in what has come to be called
the Continental tradition, is intriguing both because of its
intellectual content and the manner in which it is presented. This
essay is by no means a thorough treatment of Heideggers work. I
intend merely to give an introduction to phenomenology and
Heideggers variant of it and to make some suggestions about what
his project might inspire us to do with our lives.

Husserls Phenomenology
Martin Heidegger was a student of Edmund Husserl, the founder of
phenomenology as a philosophical (as opposed to a merely
psychological) discipline. The goal of Husserl's phenomenology
was to describe as exactly as possible the phenomena and
structures of conscious experience without appeal to philosophical
or scientific preconceptions about their nature, origin, or cause.1
Phenomenology is the act of examining one's own experience
reflectively and without bias. The investigator inspects his or her
own experience directly instead of, for instance, using intermediary
channels such as an electroencephalograph to measure brain
waves. It is called "reflective" because it is analogous to how one
sees oneself in a mirror. The object being examined is, in some
sense, oneself, just as the image in a mirror is.
The bias that phenomenologists try to avoid is the naive belief that
the objects of our experience actually exist independently of our
experiencing them. The phenomenologist does not deny their
existence. He or she merely attempts to avoid letting that naive
belief influence the investigation. By bracketing, or putting aside,
our instinctive belief in a real world, we can perceive things that
have been in our experience all along but to which we paid no
attention. The phenomenology of visual perception, for instance,
investigates the mental structures that are present in an act of
seeing something: things like the implicit belief that what we are
seeing has another side, hidden from us; that it has persisted
through the past and is expected to persist into the future; that
others like us will see it in much the same way; that it has certain
uses; and so forth. We do not normally pay attention to all this
cognition. Instead we just pay attention to whatever we are looking
at. But the cognition is there nonetheless, and can be noticed with
sufficient attention to the process of perceiving. Buddhist
meditators and phenomenological investigators share some
similarity in this regard: both just pay attention to what is present
in experience, without interpreting it as anything else. It is a
radically first-person point of view.
If you are still puzzled, consider two experiences: (1) seeing a
small black dog, and (2) hallucinating that you see a small black
dog. Until you know that the second case is a hallucination, the
experiences are exactly the same. In both cases you see a small
black dog. The dog is present in your experience. And in both
cases there is a great deal of cognition, mental processing, that is
present in the dog-as-perceived. The dog-as-perceived has
elements that are just given its shape, color and sound and
elements that are contributed by the perceiver the recognition
that it is a dog, the tacit knowledge of what dogs do and hence
certain expectations of the dog, and so forth. Together what is
given and what we add constitute the dog-as-perceived. The
elements contributed by the perceiver are present in every act of
perception, although they are most often overlooked. Using the
phenomenological method, Husserl investigated the experience of
a great number of things, including physical objects, mental
constructs such as mathematics, the internal experience of the
passage of time, and much more.

Heideggers Phenomenology
But this is not about Husserl's phenomenology of perception,
interesting as that may be. It is about Heidegger's extension of it.
Heidegger took that same stance a radical first-person point of
view and applied it not to experience of specific types of objects
but to life as a whole, the life-world (in German, die Lebensweld, a
term that Husserl introduced a few years after Heidegger published
Being and Time). Husserl's insight was that every experience is an
experience of something. We never have experience without there
being something present in the experience. Heidegger's insight was
that same principle applies to our life. We always find ourselves in
a world, engaged in it. The fundamental structure of human life is
Being-in-the-world (in German, In-der-Welt-sein). We are never
isolated subjects, cogitating about things from which we are
essentially separate. We cannot properly be taken into account
except as existing in the midst of a world among other people and
things. "Being-in-the-world" is hyphenated into one word to
indicate that categorical distinctions such as subject and object,
consciousness and world, are interpretations that are secondary, not
foundational. The original experience, which we can understand
only by stepping back from it and reflecting on it without bias, is a
unitary phenomenon.
Immersed in the first-person point of view, Heidegger employs
unusual, idiosyncratic terms. "Being-in-the-world" is one such
term, as is the famous Dasein (being-there), which means human
being. To be human is "to be there" and "there" is the world.

A Phenomenological Observation
To understand the phenomenological attitude, consider two other
unusual phrases of Heideggers, ready-to-hand and present-at-
hand. In Being and Time, Heidegger contrasts two ways of
dealing with or relating to objects in the world. As a
phenomenologist he describes them, not in objective, scientific
terms, nor in terms of how we feel or behave toward the objects,
but in terms of how the objects appear to us. He calls these two
modes of appearance Readiness-to-hand (in German,
Zuhandenheit) and Presence-at-hand (Vorhandenheit). That which
is ready-to-hand (zuhanden) is usable and useful, like a hammer
that is close by when we want to nail something. That which is
merely present-at-hand (vorhanden) is just there with no immediate
relevance, like some other tool, a set of wrenches say, that is in the
vicinity when we have no need of it because what we want to do is
nail something, not turn a bolt. The wrenches have no bearing on
what we are concerned with at the moment, unlike the hammer,
which does. The wrenches and the hammer appear to us quite
differently.
I say "merely present-at-hand" because for Heidegger being
present-at-hand is a deficient mode of being. Readiness-to-hand is
more primordial. In our original experience, before we do a lot of
thinking about it, our world is mostly composed of things that are
ready-to-hand. They stand out against a background of what is just
there. We do not perceive everything as being of equal importance.
Heidegger says
"The kind of dealing which is closest to us is ... not a bare
perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which
manipulates things and puts them to use."2
As evidenced by the title of his book, Heidegger is making an
assertion about what really is, what actually exists. According to
him, some things are ready-to-hand and others arent; they are just
there.
This is not what a scientific analysis would tell us. If you took
photographs of a workbench, measured and weighed all the objects
on it, and carefully plotted their spatial locations and distances
from each other, you would find no readiness-to-hand and no
presence-at-hand. In a sense, I suppose, the objects would all be
present-at-hand, just there; but with nothing ready-to-hand to
contrast them with, they would not even have that quality.
The question of the ontological status of qualities has a long
philosophical history. Is the redness that we see when looking at an
apple or a rose something "out there" in the object? Or is it "in
here," solely in our experience of the object? Or does it arise only
when someone sees the object? A scientific approach would say
that light of a certain wavelength is there whether or not anybody
is looking. But the redness itself, where is that?
Similarly, where is readiness-to-hand? Not in the object alone, nor
in the person alone, but in the relationship. Heidegger's strength
and unique contribution is to insist that wherever it is, readiness-to-
hand is real; it has its own being; it actually exists.

What They Tell Us

We know about readiness-to-hand only if we pay attention to our
experience, but most of us are not in the habit of doing that. Too
often we just unthinkingly go along with the accepted beliefs of
our society without examining them closely. We think stuff is just
there, because that's what science (the kind of science found in
popular belief) tells us, despite our own experience that some
things are much more interesting than others and are present in our
experience much more vividly.
In talking about unexamined experience, Heidegger speaks of the
they. That phrase is an English translation of the German das
Man, which literally translated means the one, meaning everyone
in general but nobody in particular. For instance, the German
proverb An den Frchten erkennt man den Baum means literally
By the fruits one knows the tree. That means we know
someones character by how they act, which is not controversial,
but other unexamined suppositions are more problematic.
Heidegger speaks of being lost in the publicness of the they.3
Many of us have ideas about how to live our lives that are not our
own, but just given to us by those around us. We think we ought to
go to school, get a job, get married, raise a family and so forth, just
because that's what everyone does. We think we ought to listen to
and obey the authorities just because well, because they are
authorities and surely they know better than we do. We think we
ought to wear the clothes and listen to the music our friends and
peer group do because everybody else does and we dont want to
be different. Or we rebel against conformity and wear different
clothes and listen to different music because hmmm because
our rebellious peer group does the same. If we are not careful, we
live in a world not our own, a world punctuated only by the
amusements and diversions that they (the authorities, the mass of
everybody else, the peer group) provide for us.

Authenticity
Heidegger calls the mode of existence dictated by the they,
derisively, inauthentic. At root, authentic means my own (in
German, eigentlich.) So the authentic self is the self that is our
own, that leads a life that is owned by us ourselves, that is to say
by each one of us individually, whereas the inauthentic self is the
self lost to the they.4
What does it mean to be authentic, to own your life? Heidegger
thinks it has something to do with facing up to your own death,
living in the knowledge that you will die, facing the anxiety that
accompanies that realization, and in that knowledge resolutely
taking responsibility for your own existence.5 Im not going to
follow that train of thought, however, because it is not clear
whether Heideggers assessment of death is something essential
and common to all humans or merely something idiosyncratic to
himself.6 (To find out, we would each have to examine our own
life experience and see what we find.)
The problem with being inauthentic is that it mostly doesnt lead to
happiness and fulfillment. Going along with the they works to a
degree, particularly if we live in a stable society in which roles and
expectations are well-known and constant over generations. But it
doesn't work if our world is changing rapidly and the old tried-and-
true approaches to life don't produce useful results. It doesn't work
for those of us with talents and interests outside the norms. It
doesn't work if just doing the same old thing that we have always
done will result in ecological destruction and loss of shelter, food
and water. It doesn't work if just blindly obeying the political
authorities, or even getting excited and working passionately for
one political party or another, will do nothing to change the
fundamental economic circumstances of our lives. It doesn't work
if, thinking we are merely meaningless collections of atoms,
destined to live for a time and then disperse, we miss out on the
deep satisfaction of knowing that we are part of something much
vaster and more beautiful, and deliberately directing our efforts to
be in harmony with that greater pattern.
(Before continuing I want to note that there is a sense in which the
they is not so bad as I am making out here. We all live with
others, and in fact we could not live without them. Humans have
been called (by others, not by Heidegger) ultrasocial7 and
obligatorily gregarious.8 Without others of our kind we could
not survive. Heidegger, from his phenomenological perspective,
calls this feature of human life Being-with (Mitsein), and says it
is essential to being human.9 We are inauthentic when we fail to
recognize how much and in what ways how we think of ourselves
and how we habitually behave is influenced by our social
surroundings. We are authentic when we pay attention to that
influence and decide for ourselves whether to go along with it or
not. Living entirely without such influence, however, is not an
option.)

Excellence
So what shall we do instead of going along with the they? My
answer goes back to Aristotle, who was a major influence on
Heideggers thinking. Aristotle claimed that happiness and
fulfillment have a lot to do with how well we function.10
Functioning well means doing what we are good at and doing it in
a good way, a way that promotes and enhances our ability to do it.
When we function well we experience what the Greeks
calledeudaimonia, often translated as happiness or flourishing.11
And how do we find out what functioning well means for us? By
carefully examining our own life experience; in other words, by
doing a sort of phenomenology.
There are things that some of us are good at and others are not.
Some have special talents for sports, for instance, or mathematics
or music, but not everyone does. On an individual level, each of us
needs to find out what he or she is good at personally, or
idiosyncratically, and pursue and develop those talents. Thats
where phenomenological examination of our own life world comes
in. Each of us can ask: What am I really good at? What really gives
me deep nourishment and satisfaction? Others, your culture and
your family and peer group, will tell you, but only you can
determine whether what they say is true for you.
Looking at ourselves individually is not enough, though. We need
to know something about humans in general, not just our own
experience. There are also things that everybody is good at, by
virtue of being a human being.
Im summarizing quite a bit here, but my research tells me that the
uniquely human function is our capacity for second-order thinking.
By second order, I mean the ability to take ourselves as objects
of thought. The first order is to think about things and people in the
world external to us. Other animals do that; they can think about
the world and communicate with each other about it. But only we
can think about ourselves. Our ability to pay attention and think
about ourselves as well as the world we live in, is what
distinguishes us from other animals. Heidegger alludes to this
characteristic of being human when he says
Dasein [the human being] is an entity which does not just occur
among other entities. Rather ... in its very Being, that Being is an
issue for it.12
I prefer to speak of human excellence instead of authenticity. Only
if we exercise the uniquely human function of self-reflection do we
operate at our full capacity and have the best chance to find our
place in the world and live there harmoniously. Doing so means
finding out things like how cognition and emotion work, how
morality and religion function to bind individuals together in
groups and cause conflict between groups, and many more such
facts about humans generally. And it means discovering how each
of us in particular thinks and acts; what gets in the way of our clear
thinking and how to overcome such obstacles.
The oracle at Delphi said "Know thyself." The phenomenologist
says "Know your experience. Pay attention to your own being." To
do so might be uncomfortable. It might cause us to question what
they tell us and require courage and determination to stay true to
the quest for real confidence in what we have learned for ourselves
and seen with our own eyes. But the rewards will be great. The
potential is there for us to experience the happiness and fulfillment
of the truly excellent human being. What that means is something
each of us needs to find out for him- or herself.

References
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, I.7 1097b, pp. 22-29. Tr. W.D.
Ross. Introduction to Aristotle, Ed. Richard McKeon. New York:
Random House Modern Library, 1947, p 318. Available online at
http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html.
Encyclopdia Britannica Online, s. v. "Martin Heidegger." Online
publication
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/259513/Martin-
Heidegger as of 5 March, 2014.
de Waal, Frans. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality
Evolved. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth
in Ancient Wisdom. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Tr., John Macquarrie and
Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.
Hornsby, Roy. "What Heidegger Means by Being-in-the-World."
On-line publication http://royby.com/philosophy/pages/dasein.html
as of 19 April 2011.
Wheeler, Michael. Martin Heidegger. The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). On-
line publicationhttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ as of 5
March 2014.
Wikipedia. "Being and Time." Online publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Time as of 5 March 2014.
Wikipedia. Eudaimonia. Online publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia as of 16 December 2008.
Wikipedia. Eudaimonism. Online publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonism as of 16 December
2008.
Wikipedia. "Heideggerian terminology". Online publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology as of 12
March 2010.
Wikipedia. Lifeworld. Online publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeworld as of 5 March 2014.
Wikipedia. Martin Heidegger. Online publication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger as of 5 March
2014.

About the Author

Bill Meacham, Ph.D, is an independent scholar in philosophy and
the author of the book How To Be an Excellent Human and the
blog Philosophy for Real Life, both of which are available on his
website, http://bmeacham.com. He spent many years in computers
and data processing. He brings the precision required for good
software development to the analysis of philosophical concepts and
to the deep questions posed by philosophy: What's real? How do
we know what's real? And what shall we do about what's real?

Revision History
Version Date Author Change
1 5 March 2014 Bill Meacham First draft
2 15 March 2014 Bill Meacham Add parenthetical comment
about Being-with. Other minor corrections.
2.11 July 2014 Bill Meacham Fixed minor typo.
1 Encyclopedia Britannica, Martin Heidegger.
2 Being and Time, p.95.
3 Being and Time, p. 220.
4 Wheeler, Martin Heidegger.
5 Wikipedia, Martin Heidegger.
6 A danger of the first-person point of view is that in looking at our
own experience we might find things that we mistakenly think are
common to everyone or even essential to being human, but in fact
are true only of our own life. The danger is even greater if we, like
many Continental philosophers, use impressive sounding
neologisms or use words in strikingly different ways from their
ordinary usage to talk about what we find. The reader might be
inclined to believe what we say uncritically, just because it sounds
extraordinary or dramatic. If so, the reader would be succumbing
to the they.
7 Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, pp. 47 ff.
8 de Waal, Primates and Philosophers, p. 4.
9 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 156.
10 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, I.7 1097b 22-29
11 Wikipedia, Eudaimonia and Eudaimonism.
12 Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 32.

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