Almost every individual desire to comprehend the world, provoking theories of various kinds to help make sense of it, because many aspects of the world defy easy explanation. However, some individual are likely to cease their effort at some point and to content themselves with whatever understanding they achieved, but no with Edmund Husserl.
The paper aims to come up a clear and striking epistemological assessment of Edmund Husserl's “phenomenological epoché” which lay genius integration of traditional ideas from Aristotle, Descartes and Hume with new ideas, to a more sophisticated of mind and consciousness derived from Brentano, which gives way to a new horizon of understanding man not merely as thinking subject but the acting, feeling, living individual condition of existence. The author solely concern's phenomenological epoché; suspension of all natural belief in the objects of experience where every method is taken by itself and investigated by the method that would modify the old established science, bracketing everything contingent, empirical and relative to arrive at “apodictic certainty”; at the essence which form the a priori conditions upon which empirical phenomenology is premised. Assessing epistemologically its method of epoché as it attempts to study the nature, origin, scope and validity of knowledge as the basis of erecting philosophy as rigorous science.
Husserl's leaping evolution from traditional philosophy to the philosophical concerns of the late 20th century, taking philosophy beyond time alternatives of psychologism and formalism,
realism and idealism, objectivism and subjectivism. Considering the historical development made in the search of method as a tool to solve the disagreement and speculations regarding abstruse question over the nature, scope and validity of knowledge, the paper will include remarkable thinkers that had influence the shaping of Edmund Husserl's concept of the phenomenological epoché.
Epistemological Literature
Two young dogs in a mock growl fight wrestle and slightly bite each other. One, observer thinks both dogs are practicing for future battles. Hence, work. Another observer thinks both dogs are having fun in the mock fight. Hence, play. A third observer thinks both dogs are working and playing. The quest for the certitude has dominated most of philosophers thought, contributing to such yearning of certainty constructing historical issues in the field of epistemology (Theory of Knowledge), philosophical inquiry in to the nature, origin and scope of knowledge addressing issue such as “(1) Whether knowledge of any kind is possible, and if so what kind. (2) Whether human knowledge is a priori or whether instead all significant knowledge is acquired through experience (a posteriori). (3) Whether knowledge is inherently a mental state (behaviorism). (4) Whether certainty is a form of knowledge; and (6) Whether the primary task of epistemology is to provide justification for broad categories of knowledge”.
Plato's remarkable inquiry into the nature of knowledge lead him to formulate the notion that there are two types of knowledge; One, sense perception which is only concerned with fleeting objects which appears differently at varied period of time, second reason which look into the highest form of knowledge, inquiring further beyond what the senses can achieved, yielding not merely to fallible opinions. Thus, convinced Plato concluded that things appreciated by the senses are mere copy from the world of forms (ideas) recognized by innate ideas and that the reason for such ignorance is due to soul's attachment to the body. Motivated and interested into the nature of knowledge, Aristotle embarks a new course taking refuge into the role of nature in attaining certitude. In his book De Anima (On the Soul), Aristotle consider that matter and form is not separate as previously held by his teacher, but works as one and that anything exists in the consciousness are not acquired without passing from the senses, mind at birth is empty (Tabularasa) and that knowledge can be attained through experience which senses collects the data and by science, experience are verified. Aristotle concludes that senses aid man to attain certainty in harmony with the laws of nature.
Plato and Aristotle's realization shove dichotomy in the latter development particularly in the field of epistemology. In the coming of new age, new concerns come to light aiming for certitude of knowledge. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), prominent among rationalist was chiefly concerned with the problem of intellectual certainty and thus able to come up a method that would harness the abilities of the mind with specific set of rules. Descartes's departure from the established realization give a new start where every idea must be subjected to doubt in order to grasp certainty as a starting point for building up knowledge. Convinced by Descartes's notion Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) had also consider that rational faculties are capable of constructing ideas that reflects the true nature of things, believing that by mathematics could discover the underlying structure of everything. Empiricist alters the course, dissatisfied with the claims made by the key continental rationalist. John Locke (1632-1708) gives the grounding for empiricism, rejecting rationalist notion and that experience (senses and reflection) is the axiom that guarantee certainty. George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (1711-1766) in their separate ways further support Locke's position that nothing comes to mind that doesn't pass through the senses. Empiricist claims that knowledge is derived from experience that the mind is a blank slate prior to experience and sensations are atomic and simple, that the axiomatic principles of logic such as the principle of identity and contradiction could not proved as innate ideas for there are no clear deductive argument into the existence of such entities and that empirical way of knowing is far more reasonable.
Rationalist and Empiricist thinkers made great contributions to philosophy, particularly in the field of epistemology by its scope and influence. Indeed, their influence is such that we refer to both schools of thought as rationalism and empiricism strands of thought. Due to its continuing contradictions and arguments between these two philosophical movements, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a remarkable German philosopher sets a “Copernican revolution” over the scope, nature and validity of knowledge where Kant argued that knowledge is limited only on its scope which takes in two forms; (1) limited to the world of experience, (2) knowledge is limited by the manner of faculties of perception and organization of the raw data of experience. Kant bridge the chasm between rationalism and empiricism resolving contradictions that are inherent to the two philosophical movement, maintaining that the nature of things-in-themselves is hidden and that the mind is structured in such a way it prevents of going beyond the realm of experience (phenomena).
Husserl and Phenomenological Epoché
Phenomenology is the disciplined investigation of fundamental structures and features of experience, basic type of experience and various kinds of objects that are correlated with them. It tends to clarify differences and connections among diverse structures objects of consciousness. Best understood as a radical, anti-traditionalist style of philosophizing which emphasizes that attempt to described phenomena, in the broadest sense as it appears as it manifests itself to consciousness. The term phenomenology could be traced back to Hegel and Kant who frequently employ the terminology. Hegel sets a technical definition attached to it, defining phenomenology as it appears to consciousness but Hegel consider it as grounding towards the absolute knowledge of the “Absolute”. Exhibiting the path to anyone who yields knowledge of the ultimate reality, where the mind is the ultimate reality in the world.
Edmund Husserl (1859—1938), at the turn of the century set himself the goal of establishing a rigorous science, a body of knowledge that is based on any presuppositions refining the study of consciousness and establish the discipline of phenomenology which need a new starting point far from those established natural sciences where in his words:
Pure phenomenology, to which we are here seeking the way, whose
unique position in regard to all other sciences we wish to make clear,
and to seth forth as the most fundamental region of philosophy, is
an essentially new science, which in virtue of its own governing
peculiarity thinking and has not until out own day therefore show
an impulse to develop.
Husserl intends to create an independent discipline that would solidify foundations of all other field intellectually by giving a clear standard of evidence, intersubjectively verifiable results that would reform philosophical knowledge by setting aside habits of thought, breaking those habits which lay hold to those philosophical problems in need of new ways of looking such problem without reverting to old view points. In one of his work, Crisis of European Sciences, 1936 he discuss the urgency of providing best possible answers to human concerns, directing his criticisms towards the assumption and method of natural sciences.
The task of describing the given is complicated by the fact that man has its own inherited dogmas or principles in life which is obscure to clear intuition or experience where it must be purify by means of phenomenological epoché (reduction); that is the suspension of any beliefs other than those can be justified from experience. General concepts, physical objects, the world itself must not be assumed for such prejudices must be suspended, bracketing everything contingent, empirical and relative. “To bracket means to put certain belief out of action or consideration so that they may not interfere with the pure and unadulterated apprehension of an event or experience.” epoché, a Greek word to which Husserl gives his own peculiar meaning rather than coin a word in his own language.
Husserl's philosophy by the usual account evolved through three stages. First, he overthrew a purportedly psychologistic position to the foundations of arithmetic, striving instead to establish anti-psychologistic, objects to the foundations of mathematics and logic. Second, he moved from the concept of philosophy as rooted in the Brentanian descriptive psychology to the development of a new discipline called 'phenomenology' and a metaphysical position dubbed as “transcendental idealism”. Third, he transformed his phenomenology which initially amounted to a form of methodological solipsism, into a phenomenology of intersubjectivity and into the ontology of life world (especially in his, Crisis of European Science, 1936), embracing the social worlds of culture and history.
In ordinary experience most people often take for granted that the world around exist independently both of us and our consciousness of it. This might be put by saying that we share an implicit belief in the independent existence of the world and that this belief permeates and informs our everyday experience. Husserl to this positing of the world and entities as “natural attitude.” In the Ideas of Phenomenology, Husserl introduces what refer as “epistemological reduction;” according to which we are asked to supply this positing of a transcendental world with “an index of indifference.” In Ides I this becomes the “phenomenological epoché,” according to which presuppositions and other inherited concepts must be put out of action for they belong to the essence of the natural attitude; everything that posits independent existence of the world or worldly entities must be suspended; and all judgment presuppose such judgment are to be bracketed and no use is to be made in the course of engaging in phenomenological analysis.
This epoché is the most important part of the phenomenological reduction, the purpose of which is to open us up to the world of phenomena, how it is that the world and the entities within it are given. The reduction, then, is that which reveals to us the primary subject matter of phenomenology—the world as given and the givenness of the world; both objects and acts of consciousness.
The paper aims to come up a clear and striking epistemological assessment of Edmund Husserl's “phenomenological epoché” which lay genius integration of traditional ideas from Aristotle, Descartes and Hume with new ideas, to a more sophisticated of mind and consciousness derived from Brentano, which gives way to a new horizon of understanding man not merely as thinking subject but the acting, feeling, living individual condition of existence. The author solely concern's phenomenological epoché; suspension of all natural belief in the objects of experience where every method is taken by itself and investigated by the method that would modify the old established science, bracketing everything contingent, empirical and relative to arrive at “apodictic certainty”; at the essence which form the a priori conditions upon which empirical phenomenology is premised. Assessing epistemologically its method of epoché as it attempts to study the nature, origin, scope and validity of knowledge as the basis of erecting philosophy as rigorous science.
Husserl's leaping evolution from traditional philosophy to the philosophical concerns of the late 20th century, taking philosophy beyond time alternatives of psychologism and formalism,
realism and idealism, objectivism and subjectivism. Considering the historical development made in the search of method as a tool to solve the disagreement and speculations regarding abstruse question over the nature, scope and validity of knowledge, the paper will include remarkable thinkers that had influence the shaping of Edmund Husserl's concept of the phenomenological epoché.
Epistemological Literature
Two young dogs in a mock growl fight wrestle and slightly bite each other. One, observer thinks both dogs are practicing for future battles. Hence, work. Another observer thinks both dogs are having fun in the mock fight. Hence, play. A third observer thinks both dogs are working and playing. The quest for the certitude has dominated most of philosophers thought, contributing to such yearning of certainty constructing historical issues in the field of epistemology (Theory of Knowledge), philosophical inquiry in to the nature, origin and scope of knowledge addressing issue such as “(1) Whether knowledge of any kind is possible, and if so what kind. (2) Whether human knowledge is a priori or whether instead all significant knowledge is acquired through experience (a posteriori). (3) Whether knowledge is inherently a mental state (behaviorism). (4) Whether certainty is a form of knowledge; and (6) Whether the primary task of epistemology is to provide justification for broad categories of knowledge”.
Plato's remarkable inquiry into the nature of knowledge lead him to formulate the notion that there are two types of knowledge; One, sense perception which is only concerned with fleeting objects which appears differently at varied period of time, second reason which look into the highest form of knowledge, inquiring further beyond what the senses can achieved, yielding not merely to fallible opinions. Thus, convinced Plato concluded that things appreciated by the senses are mere copy from the world of forms (ideas) recognized by innate ideas and that the reason for such ignorance is due to soul's attachment to the body. Motivated and interested into the nature of knowledge, Aristotle embarks a new course taking refuge into the role of nature in attaining certitude. In his book De Anima (On the Soul), Aristotle consider that matter and form is not separate as previously held by his teacher, but works as one and that anything exists in the consciousness are not acquired without passing from the senses, mind at birth is empty (Tabularasa) and that knowledge can be attained through experience which senses collects the data and by science, experience are verified. Aristotle concludes that senses aid man to attain certainty in harmony with the laws of nature.
Plato and Aristotle's realization shove dichotomy in the latter development particularly in the field of epistemology. In the coming of new age, new concerns come to light aiming for certitude of knowledge. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), prominent among rationalist was chiefly concerned with the problem of intellectual certainty and thus able to come up a method that would harness the abilities of the mind with specific set of rules. Descartes's departure from the established realization give a new start where every idea must be subjected to doubt in order to grasp certainty as a starting point for building up knowledge. Convinced by Descartes's notion Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) had also consider that rational faculties are capable of constructing ideas that reflects the true nature of things, believing that by mathematics could discover the underlying structure of everything. Empiricist alters the course, dissatisfied with the claims made by the key continental rationalist. John Locke (1632-1708) gives the grounding for empiricism, rejecting rationalist notion and that experience (senses and reflection) is the axiom that guarantee certainty. George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (1711-1766) in their separate ways further support Locke's position that nothing comes to mind that doesn't pass through the senses. Empiricist claims that knowledge is derived from experience that the mind is a blank slate prior to experience and sensations are atomic and simple, that the axiomatic principles of logic such as the principle of identity and contradiction could not proved as innate ideas for there are no clear deductive argument into the existence of such entities and that empirical way of knowing is far more reasonable.
Rationalist and Empiricist thinkers made great contributions to philosophy, particularly in the field of epistemology by its scope and influence. Indeed, their influence is such that we refer to both schools of thought as rationalism and empiricism strands of thought. Due to its continuing contradictions and arguments between these two philosophical movements, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a remarkable German philosopher sets a “Copernican revolution” over the scope, nature and validity of knowledge where Kant argued that knowledge is limited only on its scope which takes in two forms; (1) limited to the world of experience, (2) knowledge is limited by the manner of faculties of perception and organization of the raw data of experience. Kant bridge the chasm between rationalism and empiricism resolving contradictions that are inherent to the two philosophical movement, maintaining that the nature of things-in-themselves is hidden and that the mind is structured in such a way it prevents of going beyond the realm of experience (phenomena).
Husserl and Phenomenological Epoché
Phenomenology is the disciplined investigation of fundamental structures and features of experience, basic type of experience and various kinds of objects that are correlated with them. It tends to clarify differences and connections among diverse structures objects of consciousness. Best understood as a radical, anti-traditionalist style of philosophizing which emphasizes that attempt to described phenomena, in the broadest sense as it appears as it manifests itself to consciousness. The term phenomenology could be traced back to Hegel and Kant who frequently employ the terminology. Hegel sets a technical definition attached to it, defining phenomenology as it appears to consciousness but Hegel consider it as grounding towards the absolute knowledge of the “Absolute”. Exhibiting the path to anyone who yields knowledge of the ultimate reality, where the mind is the ultimate reality in the world.
Edmund Husserl (1859—1938), at the turn of the century set himself the goal of establishing a rigorous science, a body of knowledge that is based on any presuppositions refining the study of consciousness and establish the discipline of phenomenology which need a new starting point far from those established natural sciences where in his words:
Pure phenomenology, to which we are here seeking the way, whose
unique position in regard to all other sciences we wish to make clear,
and to seth forth as the most fundamental region of philosophy, is
an essentially new science, which in virtue of its own governing
peculiarity thinking and has not until out own day therefore show
an impulse to develop.
Husserl intends to create an independent discipline that would solidify foundations of all other field intellectually by giving a clear standard of evidence, intersubjectively verifiable results that would reform philosophical knowledge by setting aside habits of thought, breaking those habits which lay hold to those philosophical problems in need of new ways of looking such problem without reverting to old view points. In one of his work, Crisis of European Sciences, 1936 he discuss the urgency of providing best possible answers to human concerns, directing his criticisms towards the assumption and method of natural sciences.
The task of describing the given is complicated by the fact that man has its own inherited dogmas or principles in life which is obscure to clear intuition or experience where it must be purify by means of phenomenological epoché (reduction); that is the suspension of any beliefs other than those can be justified from experience. General concepts, physical objects, the world itself must not be assumed for such prejudices must be suspended, bracketing everything contingent, empirical and relative. “To bracket means to put certain belief out of action or consideration so that they may not interfere with the pure and unadulterated apprehension of an event or experience.” epoché, a Greek word to which Husserl gives his own peculiar meaning rather than coin a word in his own language.
Husserl's philosophy by the usual account evolved through three stages. First, he overthrew a purportedly psychologistic position to the foundations of arithmetic, striving instead to establish anti-psychologistic, objects to the foundations of mathematics and logic. Second, he moved from the concept of philosophy as rooted in the Brentanian descriptive psychology to the development of a new discipline called 'phenomenology' and a metaphysical position dubbed as “transcendental idealism”. Third, he transformed his phenomenology which initially amounted to a form of methodological solipsism, into a phenomenology of intersubjectivity and into the ontology of life world (especially in his, Crisis of European Science, 1936), embracing the social worlds of culture and history.
In ordinary experience most people often take for granted that the world around exist independently both of us and our consciousness of it. This might be put by saying that we share an implicit belief in the independent existence of the world and that this belief permeates and informs our everyday experience. Husserl to this positing of the world and entities as “natural attitude.” In the Ideas of Phenomenology, Husserl introduces what refer as “epistemological reduction;” according to which we are asked to supply this positing of a transcendental world with “an index of indifference.” In Ides I this becomes the “phenomenological epoché,” according to which presuppositions and other inherited concepts must be put out of action for they belong to the essence of the natural attitude; everything that posits independent existence of the world or worldly entities must be suspended; and all judgment presuppose such judgment are to be bracketed and no use is to be made in the course of engaging in phenomenological analysis.
This epoché is the most important part of the phenomenological reduction, the purpose of which is to open us up to the world of phenomena, how it is that the world and the entities within it are given. The reduction, then, is that which reveals to us the primary subject matter of phenomenology—the world as given and the givenness of the world; both objects and acts of consciousness.
Comments
Post a Comment