Seeds of
phenomenology were laid in the 18th century
Typically
knowledge production is based on a Cartesian model, i.e. understanding world is
made up of signs and symbols – the world in a semiological space – that which
constructs meaning. (that the world is only constructed through the meanings we
associate along with any definite order it might have/not have)
However, our
understanding of the world is much more nuanced in the way we make associations
even before the semiological apparatus comes into play. These associations are
rendered through a very innate sense, through our cultural fragments.
The true meaning
of the outside world (whole) are only descriptions by our emotional senses.
This would be suggested by the Cartesian construct/apparatus. It assumes that
the world outside our mind as a definite meaning, which we interpret
imperfectly!
Phenomenology
on the other hand says that meaning comes only with existence when the mind
encounters the world. Thus, there is no meaning out there – it gets produced
only through the intersection and interaction between the mind and the world.
Immanuel Kant made a distinction between the noumenal
world of things in themselves and the phenomenal world of reality as experienced
through our senses. (in philosophy, noumenon is a posited object or event that exists
independently of human sense and/or perception.)
This was
picked up by Hegel
Then developed
by German philosopher Edmund Husserl – he was trying to develop
an objective study of the subjective study and use systematic reflection to
determine the essence of consciousness.
Understood as
the careful description of experiences in which they are experienced by the
subject to study, in Husserl’s words the whole of our ‘life of consciousness;
Although, Phenomenology
was really shaped by Martin Heidegger in his Being and Time
And
eventually that became the foundation of Sartre’s existential philosophy
and that of
School of
Phenomenology is dedicated to understanding consciousness in its raw form. It
is an experientialist philosophy rather than a rationalist philosophy (rationalist
meaning related to scientific understanding of things).
Analysis of structure
of self-experience
Husserl
talks about ‘natural attitude’ – that the word is out there, relative to
our experience, that it is just a belief
He asks what
is the structure of consciousness? Proposes a theory called INTENTIONALITY – ‘aboutness’
Articulates that consciousness cannot be an isolated thing. It is always ‘about’ something. Intentionality is the interaction between the CONTENT of consciousness and the STRUCTURES of consciousness. (Structures of consciousness include perception, memory, protention, retention, signification, amongst many others.)
How is
phenomenology mobilized> What is the methodology?
·
Bracketing: Remove all judgements, reduce all phenomena
to its rawest experience
·
Eidetic
reduction: Goal
being to find the essence of the phenomenon. Separation of the necessary part
of the phenomenon from its contingent part in order to truly understand the
essence. For Husserl, the essence is the universal scientific truth.
This is what shaped the idea of Transcendental Phenomenology.
Heidegger
was more interested in ontology, rather than universal essential structure.
He talks
about Dassein – or the Being – a situated consciousness. This affects our absorption
or interpretation of the world around us.
He believed
that experiences cannot be separated from the context in which they arise. He
proposed that phenomenology is not a science, but it is about understanding the
being itself.
This is what
is the foundation of Existential Phenomenology.
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