Husserl's phenomenological method

Stewart J. McKellar

pp. 17-31

in: Burt C. Hopkins, Intentionality in Husserl and Heidegger, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

In Chapter One of my study of Husserl's phenomenological account of intentionality, I will be concerned with providing an account of his phenomenological method in view of the matters themselves. My account will, above all, be preoccupied with what I consider to be the all important problem of the phenomenological "beginnings" of this method. My efforts at clarifying these beginnings will attempt to do so by bringing into bold phenomenal reliefs the peculiar point of departure (Ansatzpunkt) of Husserl's phenomenological method. Toward this end I will trace out the initial formulation of this method as it emerges from out of the critique of what he takes to be sensationalist empiricism. My discussion will first try to show that and how this critique leads to Husserl's initial uncovering of the key elements of his method: e.g., lived-experiences, phenomenologically immanent reflection as opposed to, and differentiated from, ontologically mediated "inner" perception or reflection, and the "breakthrough discovery" of the "seeing of essences" (Wesensschau). Having shown this, I will then proceed to sketch the general lines of Husserl's abstractive and reductive purification of lived-experiences, in an effort to show how these methodical moves lead to the pure phenomenological uncovering of the essence and eidos of intentionality.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund