Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr.

Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

Chapter 32
Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology:
The Principle of Intentionality and the Methods of Reduction

Key Words:
presuppositionless philosophy, consciousness, phenomena, intentionality
principle, intentional in-existence, essences, natural attitude, bracketing, Epoche,
phenomenological-psychological reduction, eidetic reduction, transcendental
reduction, transcendental ego.

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) is widely known as the founder of modern

phenomenology, a highly influential movement in 20th century western
philosophy. Husserl was one of the prominent European thinkers of 20th century
and the movement has inspired thinkers from different streams. Though we
consider Husserl as the founder of phenomenology, the approach and method we
call as phenomenological are not his exclusive invention. Many thinkers and
philosophers like Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Mach have referred to the term
phenomenology in their writings before Husserl used it in a more systematic
way. But it was Husserl who developed it into a systematic philosophical
approach and method with certain definite goals. All major contributions in this
area are from Edmund Husserl in whose writings it appears as a philosophy and
as a method. Husserl further conceived phenomenology as a foundational
science and as a presuppositionless philosophy.
Husserl was primarily a mathematician and logician. He was the student
of the great German philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, who had
famously reintroduced the intentionality principle. Husserl was also influenced
by the empiricism of David Hume. He found the predominant naturalism and
historicism in German thought objectionable and became interested in exploring
the foundations of mathematics. This interest has led him to study logic and
finally epistemology and philosophy.

What is Phenomenology?
Husserl conceived phenomenology in three important ways. Firstly, it was
conceived as the science of sciences, which endeavoured to discover the basis of

1
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

consciousness. In the second view, phenomenology was conceived as a first

philosophy and therefore, it is coextensive with philosophy, as traditionally it
was the latter which had been enjoying the status of first philosophy. The third
conception of phenomenology is the most important one, where it is conceived
as a transcendental idealism. This view conceives the transcendental ego as the
source of all meaning.
As a philosophy, phenomenology initiates a break from many traditional
concerns and inaugurates a new way of thinking. It was one of the most
influential philosophical movements of 20th century western philosophy, as it
inspired the emergence of many other movements in philosophy like
Existentialism and Hermeneutics. Phenomenology was introduced at a time
when philosophical thinking was facing a crisis and it has given a new life to
German philosophy, which had lost its glory with the decline of the great
idealistic tradition.
As the name indicates, the subject matter of phenomenology is the idea of
phenomena, which according to Husserl, refers to ourselves, other people and
the objects and events around us. It also includes the reflection of our own
conscious experiences, as we experience them. According to Husserl, phenomena
constitute the things as they are given to our consciousness, whether in
perception or imagination or thought or volition. The fundamental objective of
phenomenology is to study the phenomena, which is experienced in various acts
of consciousness.
In this sense there are two types of phenomena; mental and physical. Mental
phenomena constitute of what occur in the mind when we experience
something. They also include the acts of consciousness, or its contents. On the
other hand, physical phenomena include the objects of external perception
starting with colors and shapes.
Phenomenology envisages isolating phenomena by suspending all
consideration of their objective reality or subjective association. Here the
phenomenologist is involved in a search for certainty. In this sense by equating
phenomenology with philosophy, the latter is conceived as a rigorous science
dealing with ideal objects or essences of things originating in the consciousness.

2
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

In developing the concept of phenomena, Husserl was influenced by

Brentano, who made a distinction between psychological phenomena from
physical phenomena. Brentano found that the psychological is different from the
physical, as the former is characterized by what is known as intentionality.
Brentano says that the mental phenomena exist intentionally in acts of
consciousness, a phenomenon which is known as intentional in-existence.
Brentano and Husserl maintain that every mental phenomenon, or act of
consciousness, is directed toward some object. They are about something that
lies outside. While for Brentano, this is the feature of all psychological
phenomena, Husserl replaces psychical phenomena with experiences or
intentional experiences. The thesis of intentional directedness constitute the
core of Brentano's descriptive psychology and according to Husserl, our
consciousness is always intentional and it aims at or refers to something
objective

The Principle of Intentionality

The phenomenological account of experience asserts two things. Firstly, it claims
that everyday experiences are intentional. Secondly, it affirms that experiences
always reveal their objects from a perspective. Hence the phenomenological
account of intentionality reconciles the objectivism of intentionality with
perspectivism of empiricism.
The principle of intentionality asserts that consciousness is always
‘consciousness about” something. This aboutness of consciousness points to
something outside the mind which is conscious of the object. The intentionality
principle underlines the fact that our everyday experiences are directed towards
objects, properties and states of affairs. At the same time, objects are revealed
from definite perspectives. There seems to be a contradiction between the
definite directedness of consciousness and the perspectivism of experiences.
Husserl argues that, though experience reveals its object from a perspective, we
are intentionally directed toward a full three-dimensional object. The different
modes of consciousness we may have when we love, hate, desire, present,
wonder etc. are all about something. Hence all objects of experience are
presented to consciousness as transcending. They are presented as going beyond

3
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

the experience we have of them. Though all our experiences are perspectival,
they also present their objects to us as transcending the perspective. For
instance, when we see a tree, we do not see a mere image of the tree or a packet
of sense data, but we see the tree itself. Of course the tree is seen from a definite
perspective and only those parts of the tree that are visible from our perspective
are seen by us. But Husserl asserts that, the whole tree is given to the
consciousness as an intentional object. Hence phenomenology goes beyond mere
empiricism. It goes beyond the image theory proposed by empiricism.
Husserl argues that perception enables us to go beyond the image, which
is present to us. We relate ourselves to the object itself as an image to a certain
extra conscious object. Husserl claims that in intentional experiences, we do not
get raw, uninterrupted images in consciousness. Instead, we get the data that are
already interpreted as images of some objects or other.
Brentano, while introducing the notion of intentionality had asserted that
consciousness was essentially intentional and argued that every mental
phenomenon was characterized by the intentional inexistence of an object. It is
directed toward an object or immanent objectivity. According to Brentano, every
mental phenomenon contains something as an object within itself, although not
everyone does so in the same way. This object, argues Brentano, is the reference
to a content. Brentano’s intentionality principle thus aims at distinguishing the
psychical from the physical. Brentano thus initiates a study on the nature of
consciousness and also on the phenomena as they are directly given to
consciousness. He argues that every mental state contains its object completely
within itself as an intentional object is immanent to the mental state.
While adopting the principle of intentionality as a central doctrine in his
phenomenology, Husserl proposed some crucial changes in its conceptualization.
According to him, experiences are directed towards entities which are both
mental and non-mental. He argues that in the experience of colour, we see
coloured things and not mere colour sensations. He maintains that, entities like
physical objects, persons, numbers which are not spatio-temporal, particulars
like the patch of blue, universals like blueness, states of affairs, mental entities
like thoughts, images and feelings, etc., can become an intentional object. In this

4
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

sense he takes phenomenology and the principle of intentionality beyond what

Brentano intended it to be.

Husserl’s Phenomenology
Husserl’s phenomenology is not confined to a mere philosophical doctrine
about the nature of consciousness and the essences that are directly given
to it. Instead, it proposes a method to isolate this directly given essences. The
central concern of phenomenology aims at isolating the essential aspects which
constitute meanings. In other words, it seeks to isolate the essences. Everything
perceived is bound up with the essence of perception which is different from the
object that exists in nature.
Husserl argues that every intentional experience gives meaning. In other
words, intentional experiences have the essential characteristic of giving some
meaning. The fundamental aim of phenomenology is to grasp the perceived as
such. It tries to grasp what is essentially given. The task of phenomenology is to
capture the phenomenon as meant. Phenomenology searches for essences in the
consciousness, which is the domain of essences. It searches for pure mental
processes which are immanent to the sphere of consciousness that investigates
them. The ultimate focus is on pure consciousness.
The various mental processes like remembering, imagining, judging, willing,
describing, feeling, perceiving etc. have their own essences. The
phenomenological method examines these essences, by excluding what do not lie
in the mental act itself. It thus builds a science of essences. In order to find the
essence of consciousness, phenomenology excludes what is non-essence. For this
the major hurdle is the natural attitude, which a phenomenologist has to
overcome.
The natural attitude is characteristic of both our everyday life and ordinary
science. The natural attitude is the taken for granted attitude we adopt in our day
to day life and in our scientific theorizing endeavours about the world. This is
our usual way of existing, by believing and taking for granted the reality of the
objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas.
We simply believe in their existence and never question this belief. We take

5
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

them as “just there” and do not question their existence. In other words, we view
the objects of consciousness as factual items. According to Husserl, the genuine
philosophical attitude opposes this view. While the natural attitude accepts the
possibility of knowledge as a self-evident fact, philosophy raises doubts about
such assumptions. It affirms that the self-evident givenness of objects of our
natural attitude can be questioned.
Husserl proposes to overcome the natural attitude by suspending the spatio-
temporal world and focusing on pure mental processes. This process is called the
phenomenological reduction, which involves a process of bracketing or Epoche
which is the Greek word for cessation. This process of reduction aims at
excluding all that is not genuinely immanent from the sphere of absolute data.
What is intended is adequately given in itself.
The process of bracketing involves a suspension of inquiry. It suspends the
object’s status as reality and therefore, involves a neutralization of belief. It sets
aside everything that is external, and the prejudices that we associate with the
reality of the world. The phenomenological method thus concentrates only on
the inner content of our conscious acts. It tries to isolate what is remembered in
the act of remembering, imagined in the act of imagination, perceived in the act
of perception etc.
According to Husserl, the process of reduction has two broad phases:
phenomenological and transcendental. The phenomenological reduction
attempts to focus on pure consciousness and it describes objects not in their
natural causal relations, but as they appear in the consciousness. Hence it is
called phenomenological. Transcendental reduction on the other hand deals with
the conditions that make any knowledge possible.
According to Husserl, there are three types of reduction: the
phenomenological-psychological reduction, eidetic reduction and transcendental
reduction. The phenomenological-psychological reduction is conceived as the
gateway to the right form of phenomenological attitude from natural attitude.
The natural attitude is bracketed at this stage and it contains the description of
mental acts free of theories and presuppositions. It also refrains from taking any
natural-objective position.

6
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

The second type of reduction is eidetic, where the individual existence of the
object in question is bracketed, since phenomenology is interested only in the
essence. The idos or essences are evaluated at this stage. The focus here is on
properties, kinds, or types and the ideal species that entities may exemplify. This
process involves a free variation of the individuals in our imagination. With this
it finds out what characteristics these things have in common. It locates the
invariant forms which are essences.
These two stages of reduction together set the stage for what is described as
the ultimate goal of phenomenological method; the isolation of the
Transcendental subjectivity. As Speigelberg observes:
It indicates that reduction has the purpose to inhibit and “take back,” as it
were, all references to the “transcendent” as the intentional correlate of our
acts and to trace them back to the immanent or “transcendental” acts in
which they have their source. [Vol. I, p. 136]

Husserl observes that without consciousness there would not be a world at all
and according to him, phenomenology has to study the realm of pure
consciousness and the essential formations found there.

The Transcendental Reduction and the Transcendental Ego

Husserl argues that since the basic approaches of the reductions that involve
suspension or bracketing are negative—in psychological-phenomenological and
eidetic reductions—we need to adopt more positive approaches. We need to
specify in what direction the reductions head to. The first two reductions move
away from the natural world, and do not specify what phenomenological
reduction ultimately heads to. Husserl here affirms that transcendental
subjectivity is the ultimate goal of the phenomenological method.
Since isolating the transcendental ego is the ultimate goal of
phenomenology, Husserl argues that a proper understanding of the ego is
essential in carrying out the phenomenological exercise. He says that there is a
fundamental problem with our understanding about the ego. The ego is usually
conceived as the essentially nonphysical entity, which is causally interacting with
the physical. We often understand the ego and its acts in naturalistic terms. The
talk of the ego and its experiences presuppose the natural attitude, which

7
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

phenomenology tries to overcome. Hence it is important that we should bracket

to the ego as well. This happens in the third stage of reduction, which is known
as the transcendental reduction.
In transcendental reduction, we bracket the ego and its intentions. We
then cease to affirm the existence of the ego as a psychological reality. In other
words, the empirical or psychological ego has to be set aside. Husserl writes:
By phenomenological epoche I reduce my natural human Ego and
psychic life - the realms of my psychological self-experience – to my
transcendental phenomenological Ego, the realm of transcendental
phenomenological self-experience. [Cartesian Meditations, p.26]

The transcendental reduction proceeds with a bracketing of the ego and its
intentions. This stage ceases to affirm the existence of the ego as a psychological
reality. With this we may get access to the transcendental subjectivity or the
transcendental ego. Husserl believed that the epoché that brackets the empirical
elements in consciousness would finally leaves only the transcendental ego and
its pure acts. According to him, the reflection on these transcendental elements
of consciousness is pure or transcendental reflection. He thought that we have
direct access to this transcendental subjectivity through a transcendental
experience and epoche is a form of transcendental experience. The
transcendental ego and its pure acts are the residue of transcendental reduction.
Husserl says that, while every cogitato come and go, the pure ego appears to
be necessary in principle. It remains absolutely self-identical in all possible
changes of experience. Husserl asserts that the pure Ego is the necessary
prerequisite for experience to occur. With the transcendental reduction of the
empirical ego, we enter into the domain of meaning, not the consciousness of an
individual human, but the essence of all meaning-making.
The notion of transcendental ego and the idea of transcendental reduction
are the most interesting and the most problematic aspects of Husserl’s
philosophy. Though Husserl considered these ideas as the most important
constituents of his philosophy, none of his disciples have shown interest in
further developing them. Husserl was reported to have stated once that even
after his death, his transcendental ego might exist, as it is eternal. In this sense
phenomenology is ultimately a philosophy of the self.

8
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

Quiz

1. Which among the following is not the way in which Husserl has conceived
phenomenology?
(a) As epistemology (b) Science of sciences (c) First philosophy (d)
Transcendental idealism.

2. According to Husserl, experiences are directed towards entities which

are……….?
(a) Mental alone (b) Non-mental alone (c) Neither mental nor non-
mental (d) Both mental and non-mental.

3. Which of the following statements are true about Husserl’s concept of

phenomenology?
(i) It grasps the mental concepts
(ii) It grasps what is essentially given
(iii) It captures the phenomenon as it is stated by the sciences
(iv) It searches for concepts in the consciousness
(v) It searches for pure mental processes.
(vi) Its ultimate focus is on pure consciousness.
(a) (vi) alone (b) (ii), (v) and (vi) (c) (i), (ii) and (vi) (d) (ii), (iii) and (vi)

4. Which of the following is not involved in the process of bracketing?

(a) Suspension of inquiry (b) Takes for granted the existence of the world
and its objects (c) Suspends the object’s status as reality (d)
Neutralization of belief.
5. What happens during eidetic reduction?

(a) Freedom from natural attitude (b) Description of mental acts free of
theories and presuppositions (c) locates the invariant forms (d) Refrains
from taking any natural-objective position.

Answer Key

1. [a]
2. [d]
3. [c]
4. [b]
5. [c]

Assignments

9
 Aspects of Western Philosophy: Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly, IIT Madras

1. Describe the principle of intentionality and its role in phenomenology.

2. Discuss Husserl’s notion of phenomenological reduction.

References

Books and Articles

1. Cerbone, David R, Understanding Phenomenology, Durham, Acumen, 2006.

2. Husserl, Edmund, Cartesian Meditations, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967.
3. ----------, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr. Evanston, Northwestern University Press
1970.
4. Kockelmans, Joseph J (Ed.) Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund
Husserl and its Interpretation, New York, Anchor Books, 1967.
5. Mohanty, J. N., Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account.
Oxford and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell, 1989.
6. Moran, Dermot, Introduction to Phenomenology, London and New york,
Routledhe, 2000.
7. ------------ Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology. Cambridge and
Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2005.
8. Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement; A Historical
Introduction, Vol. I and II, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960.

Web Resources

1. Beyer, Christian, "Edmund Husserl", The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/husserl/>.
2. Smith, David Woodruff, "Phenomenology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/phenomenology/
3. For free resources and scholarly tools like searchable database of
keywords, a database of Husserl's writings and Husserl scholarship, and a
concept-database. http://www.husserl.net/.

10