Phenomenology (philosophy)

Phenomenology (from Greek phainómenon "that which appears" and lógos "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of
experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund
Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then
[1]
spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.

Phenomenology is not a unitary movement; rather, different authors share a common family resemblance but also with many
significant differences. Gabriella Farina states:

A unique and final definition of phenomenology is dangerous and perhaps even paradoxical as it lacks a thematic
focus. In fact, it is not a doctrine, nor a philosophical school, but rather a style of thought, a method, an open and
ever-renewed experience having different results, and this may disorient anyone wishing to define the meaning of
phenomenology.[2]

Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and study of the structures of
consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. Phenomenology can be clearly differentiated from the
Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world asobjects, sets of objects, and objects acting and reacting upon one another
.

Husserl's conception of phenomenology has been criticized and developed not only by himself but also by students such as Edith
Stein and Roman Ingarden, by hermeneutic philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, by existentialists such as Nicolai Hartmann,
Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and by other philosophers such as Max Scheler, Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc
Marion, Michel Henry, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and sociologists Alfred Schütz and Eric Voegelin.

Contents
Overview
Historical overview of the use of the term
Varieties of phenomenology
Phenomenological terminology
Intentionality
Intuition
Evidence
Noesis and noema
Empathy and intersubjectivity
Lifeworld
Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen(1900/1901)
Transcendental phenomenology after theIdeen (1913)
Realist phenomenology
Existential phenomenology
Eastern thought
Technoethics
Phenomenological approach to technology
Heidegger's approach (pre-technological age)
The Hubert Dreyfus approach (contemporary society)
See also
 References
Further reading
Journals
Book series
External links

Overview
In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective:
consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgements, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology
seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it
[3]
seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.

There are several assumptions behind phenomenology that help explain its foundations:

1. Phenomenologists reject the concept of objective research. They prefer grouping assumptions through a process
called phenomenologicalepoché.
2. They believe that analyzing daily human behavior can provide one with a greater understanding of nature.
3. They assert that persons should be explored. This is because persons can be understood through the unique ways
they reflect the society they live in.
4. Phenomenologists prefer to gather "capta", or conscious experience, rather than traditional data.
5. They consider phenomenology to be oriented toward discovery , and therefore they research using methods that are
far less restrictive than in other sciences.[4]
Husserl derived many important concepts central to phenomenology from the works and lectures of his teachers, the philosophers and
psychologists Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf.[5] An important element of phenomenology that Husserl borrowed from Brentano is
intentionality (often described as "aboutness"), the notion that consciousness is always consciousness of something. The object of
consciousness is called the intentional object, and this object is constituted for consciousness in many different ways, through, for
instance, perception, memory, retention and protention, signification, etc. Throughout these different intentionalities, though they
have different structures and different ways of being "about" the object, an object is still constituted as the identical object;
consciousness is directed at the same intentional object in direct perception as it is in the immediately following retention of this
object and the eventual remembering of it.

Though many of the phenomenological methods involve various reductions, phenomenology is, in essence, anti-reductionistic; the
reductions are mere tools to better understand and describe the workings of consciousness, not to reduce any phenomenon to these
descriptions. In other words, when a reference is made to a thing's essence or idea, or when the constitution of an identical coherent
thing is specified by describing what one "really" sees as being only these sides and aspects, these surfaces, it does not mean that the
thing is only and exclusively what is described here: the ultimate goal of these reductions is to understand how these different aspects
are constituted into the actual thing as experienced by the person experiencing it. Phenomenology is a direct reaction to the
psychologism and physicalism of Husserl's time.[6]

Although previously employed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit, it was Husserl's adoption of this
term (circa 1900) that propelled it into becoming the designation of a philosophical school. As a philosophical perspective,
phenomenology is its method, though the specific meaning of the term varies according to how it is conceived by a given
philosopher. As envisioned by Husserl, phenomenology is a method of philosophical inquiry that rejects the rationalist bias that has
dominated Western thought since Plato in favor of a method of reflective attentiveness that discloses the individual's "lived
experience."[7] Loosely rooted in an epistemological device, with Sceptic roots, called epoché, Husserl's method entails the
suspension of judgment while relying on the intuitive grasp of knowledge, free of presuppositions and intellectualizing. Sometimes
depicted as the "science of experience," the phenomenological method is rooted in intentionality, i.e. Husserl's theory of
consciousness (developed from Brentano). Intentionality represents an alternative to the representational theory of consciousness,
which holds that reality cannot be grasped directly because it is available only through perceptions of reality that are representations
of it in the mind. Husserl countered that consciousness is not "in" the mind; rather, consciousness is conscious of something other
than itself (the intentional object), whether the object is a substance or a figment of imagination (i.e., the real processes associated
with and underlying the figment). Hence the phenomenological method relies on the description of phenomena as they are given to
consciousness, in theirimmediacy.

According to Maurice Natanson (1973, p. 63), "The radicality of the phenomenological method is both continuous and discontinuous
with philosophy's general effort to subject experience to fundamental, critical scrutiny: to take nothing for granted and to show the
warranty for what we claim to know." In practice, it entails an unusual combination of discipline and detachment to bracket
theoretical explanations and second-hand information while determining one's "naive" experience of the matter. (To "bracket" in this
sense means to provisionally suspend or set aside some idea as a way to facilitate the inquiry by focusing only on its most significant
components.) The phenomenological method serves to momentarily erase the world of speculation by returning the subject to his or
her primordial experience of the matter, whether the object of inquiry is a feeling, an idea, or a perception. According to Husserl the
suspension of belief in what we ordinarily take for granted or infer by conjecture diminishes the power of what we customarily
embrace as objective reality. According to Rüdiger Safranski (1998, 72), "[Husserl's and his followers'] great ambition was to
disregard anything that had until then been thought or said about consciousness or the world [while] on the lookout for a new way of
letting the things [they investigated] approach them, without covering them up with what they already knew
."

Martin Heidegger modified Husserl's conception of phenomenology because of what Heidegger perceived as Husserl's subjectivist
tendencies. Whereas Husserl conceived humans as having been constituted by states of consciousness, Heidegger countered that
consciousness is peripheral to the primacy of one's existence (i.e., the mode of being of Dasein), which cannot be reduced to one's
consciousness of it. From this angle, one's state of mind is an "effect" rather than a determinant of existence, including those aspects
of existence of which one is not conscious. By shifting the center of gravity from consciousness (psychology) to existence (ontology),
Heidegger altered the subsequent direction of phenomenology. As one consequence of Heidegger's modification of Husserl's
conception, phenomenology became increasingly relevant to psychoanalysis. Whereas Husserl gave priority to a depiction of
consciousness that was fundamentally alien to the psychoanalytic conception of the unconscious, Heidegger offered a way to
conceptualize experience that could accommodate those aspects of one's existence that lie on the periphery of sentient
awareness.[8][9]

Historical overview of the use of the term

Phenomenology has at least three main meanings in philosophical history: one in the writings of G. W. F. Hegel, another in the
writings of Edmund Husserl in 1920, and thirdly, succeeding Husserl's work, in the writings of his former research assistant Martin
Heidegger in 1927.

For G. W. F. Hegel, phenomenology is an approach tophilosophy that begins with an exploration ofphenomena
(what presents itself to us in conscious experience) as a means to finally grasp the absolute, logical, ontological and
metaphysical Spirit that is behind phenomena. This has been calleddialectical phenomenology.[10]
For Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is "the reflective study of theessence of consciousness as experienced from
the first-person point of view."[11] Phenomenology takes the intuitive experience ofphenomena (whatever presents
itself in phenomenological reflexion) as its starting point and tries to extract from it the essential features of
experiences and the essence of what we experience. When generalized to the essential features of any possible
experience, this has been calledtranscendental phenomenology(see below).[12] Husserl's view was based on
aspects of the work of Franz Brentano and was developed further by philosophers such asMaurice Merleau-Ponty,
Max Scheler, Edith Stein, Dietrich von Hildebrandand Emmanuel Levinas.
Although the term "phenomenology" was used occasionally in the history of philosophy before Husserl, modern use ties it more
explicitly to his particular method. Following is a list of important thinkers, in rough chronological order, who used the term
[13]
"phenomenology" in a variety of ways, with brief comments on their contributions:

[14]
Friedrich Christoph Oetinger(1702–1782), German pietist, for the study of the "divine system of relations"
Johann Heinrich Lambert(1728–1777), mathematician, physician and philosopher, known for the theory of
appearances underlying empirical knowledge. [15]

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), in the Critique of Pure Reason, distinguished between objects asphenomena, which
are objects as shaped and grasped by human sensibility and understanding, and objects as things-in-themselves or
noumena, which do not appear to us in space and time and about which we can make no legitimate judgments.
 G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) challenged Kant's doctrine of the unknowable thing-in-itself,nda declared that by
knowing phenomena more fully we can gradually arrive at a consciousness of the absolute and spiritual truth of
Divinity, most notably in his Phenomenology of Spirit, published in 1807.
Carl Stumpf (1848–1936), student of Brentano and mentor to Husserl, used "phenomenology" to refer to an ontology
of sensory contents.
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) established phenomenology at first as a kind of "descriptive psychology" and later as
a transcendental and eidetic science of consciousness. He is considered to be the founder of contemporary
phenomenology.
Max Scheler (1874–1928) developed further the phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl and extended it to
include also a reduction of thescientific method. He influenced the thinking ofPope John Paul II, Dietrich von
Hildebrand, and Edith Stein.
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) criticized Husserl's theory of phenomenology and attempted to develop a theory of
ontology that led him to his original theory ofDasein, the non-dualistic human being.
Alfred Schütz (1899–1959) developed a phenomenology of the social world on the basis of everyday experience that
has influenced major sociologists such asHarold Garfinkel, Peter Berger, and Thomas Luckmann.
Francisco Varela (1946–2001), Chilean philosopher and biologist. Developed the basis for experimental
phenomenology and neurophenomenology .
Later usage is mostly based on or (critically) related to Husserl's introduction and use of the term. This branch of philosophy differs
from others in that it tends to be more "descriptive" than prescriptive".
"

Varieties of phenomenology
The Encyclopedia of Phenomenology (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997) features separate articles on the following seven types of
phenomenology:[16]

1. Transcendental constitutive phenomenology studies how objects are constituted intranscendental

consciousness, setting aside questions of any relation to the natural world.
2. Naturalistic constitutive phenomenology(see naturalism) studies how consciousness constitutes things in the
world of nature, assuming with the natural attitude that consciousness is part of nature.
3. Existential phenomenologystudies concrete human existence, including our experience of free choice and/or action
in concrete situations.
4. Generative historicist phenomenology(see historicism) studies how meaning—as found in our experience—is
generated in historical processes of collective experience over time.
5. Genetic phenomenologystudies the emergence/genesis of meanings of things within one's own stream of
experience.
6. Hermeneutical phenomenology(also hermeneutic phenomenology[17] or post-
phenomenology/postphenomenology[18][19] elsewhere; see hermeneutics) studies interpretive structures of
experience.
7. Realistic phenomenology(also realist phenomenology elsewhere) studies the structure of consciousness and
intentionality as "it occurs in a real world that is largely external to consciousness and not somehow brought into
being by consciousness."[16]
The contrast between "constitutive phenomenology" (German: konstitutive Phänomenologie; also static phenomenology (statische
Phänomenologie) or descriptive phenomenology (beschreibende Phänomenologie)) and "genetic phenomenology" (genetische
Phänomenologie; also phenomenology of genesis(Phänomenologie der Genesis)) is due to Husserl.[20]

Modern scholarship also recognizes the existence of the following varieties: late Heidegger's transcendental hermeneutic
phenomenology[21] (see transcendental philosophy and a priori), Maurice Merleau-Ponty's embodied phenomenology[22] (see
embodied cognition), Michel Henry's material phenomenology (also based on embodied cognition),[23] analytic
phenomenology[24] (see analytic philosophy), J. L. Austin's linguistic phenomenology[25] (see ordinary language philosophy), and
post-analytic phenomenology[26] (see postanalytic philosophy).

Phenomenological terminology

Intentionality
Intentionality refers to the notion that consciousness is always the consciousness of something. The word itself should not be
confused with the "ordinary" use of the word intentional, but should rather be taken as playing on the etymological roots of the word.
Originally, intention referred to a "stretching out" ("in tension," from Latin intendere), and in this context it refers to consciousness
"stretching out" towards its object. However, one should be careful with this image: there is not some consciousness first that,
subsequently, stretches out to its object; rather, consciousness occurs as the simultaneity of a conscious act and its object.

Intentionality is often summed up as "aboutness." Whether this something that consciousness is about is in direct perception or in
fantasy is inconsequential to the concept of intentionality itself; whatever consciousness is directed at, that is what consciousness is
conscious of. This means that the object of consciousness doesn't have to be a physical object apprehended in perception: it can just
as well be a fantasy or a memory. Consequently, these "structures" of consciousness, i.e., perception, memory, fantasy, etc., are called
intentionalities.

The term "intentionality" originated with the Scholastics in the medieval period and was resurrected by Brentano who in turn
influenced Husserl's conception of phenomenology, who refined the term and made it the cornerstone of his theory of consciousness.
The meaning of the term is complex and depends entirely on how it is conceived by a given philosopher. The term should not be
confused with "intention" or the psychoanalytic conception of unconscious "motive" or "gain".

Intuition
Intuition in phenomenology refers to those cases where the intentional object is directly present to the intentionality at play; if the
intention is "filled" by the direct apprehension of the object, you have an intuited object. Having a cup of coffee in front of you, for
instance, seeing it, feeling it, or even imagining it – these are all filled intentions, and the object is then intuited. The same goes for
the apprehension of mathematical formulae or a number
. If you do not have the object as referred to directly
, the object is not intuited,
but still intended, but then emptily. Examples of empty intentions can be signitive intentions – intentions that only imply or refer to
their objects.

Evidence
In everyday language, we use the word evidence to signify a special sort of relation between a state of affairs and a proposition: State
A is evidence for the proposition "A is true." In phenomenology, however, the concept of evidence is meant to signify the "subjective
achievement of truth."[27] This is not an attempt to reduce the objective sort of evidence to subjective "opinion," but rather an attempt
to describe the structure of having something present in intuition with the addition of having it present as
intelligible: "Evidence is the
successful presentation of an intelligible object, the successful presentation of something whose truth becomes manifest in the
evidencing itself."[28]

Noesis and noema

In Husserl's phenomenology, which is quite common, this pair of terms, derived from the Greek nous (mind), designate respectively
the real content, noesis, and the ideal content, noema, of an intentional act (an act of consciousness). The Noesis is the part of the act
that gives it a particular sense or character (as in judging or perceiving something, loving or hating it, accepting or rejecting it, and so
on). This is real in the sense that it is actually part of what takes place in the consciousness (or psyche) of the subject of the act. The
Noesis is always correlated with a Noema; for Husserl, the full Noema is a complex ideal structure comprising at least a noematic
sense and a noematic core. The correct interpretation of what Husserl meant by the Noema has long been controversial, but the
noematic sense is generally understood as the ideal meaning of the act[29] and the noematic core as the act's referent or object as it is
meant in the act. One element of controversy is whether this noematic object is the same as the actual object of the act (assuming it
exists) or is some kind of ideal object.[30]

Empathy and intersubjectivity

In phenomenology, empathy refers to the experience of one's own body as another. While we often identify others with their physical
bodies, this type of phenomenology requires that we focus on the subjectivity of the other, as well as our intersubjective engagement
with them. In Husserl's original account, this was done by a sort ofapperception built on the experiences of your own lived-body
. The
lived body is your own body as experienced by yourself, as yourself. Your own body manifests itself to you mainly as your
possibilities of acting in the world. It is what lets you reach out and grab something, for instance, but it also, and more importantly,
allows for the possibility of changing your point of view. This helps you differentiate one thing from another by the experience of
moving around it, seeing new aspects of it (often referred to as making the absent present and the present absent), and still retaining
the notion that this is the same thing that you saw other aspects of just a moment ago (it is identical). Your body is also experienced
as a duality, both as object (you can touch your own hand) and as your own subjectivity (you experience being touched).

The experience of your own body as your own subjectivity is then applied to the experience of another's body, which, through
apperception, is constituted as another subjectivity. You can thus recognise the Other's intentions, emotions, etc. This experience of
empathy is important in the phenomenological account of intersubjectivity. In phenomenology, intersubjectivity constitutes
objectivity (i.e., what you experience as objective is experienced as being intersubjectively available – available to all other subjects.
This does not imply that objectivity is reduced to subjectivity nor does it imply a relativist position, cf. for instance intersubjective
verifiability).

In the experience of intersubjectivity, one also experiences oneself as being a subject among other subjects, and one experiences
oneself as existing objectively for these Others; one experiences oneself as the noema of Others' noeses, or as a subject in another's
empathic experience. As such, one experiences oneself as objectively existing subjectivity. Intersubjectivity is also a part in the
constitution of one's lifeworld, especially as "homeworld."

Lifeworld
The lifeworld (German: Lebenswelt) is the "world" each one of us lives in. One could call it the "background" or "horizon" of all
experience, and it is that on which each object stands out as itself (as different) and with the meaning it can only hold for us. The
lifeworld is both personal and intersubjective (it is then called a "homeworld"), and, as such, it does not enclose each one of us in a
solus ipse.

Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen (1900/1901)

In the first edition of the Logical Investigations, still under the influence of Brentano, Husserl describes his position as "descriptive
psychology." Husserl analyzes the intentional structures of mental acts and how they are directed at both real and ideal objects. The
first volume of the Logical Investigations, the Prolegomena to Pure Logic, begins with a devastating critique of psychologism, i.e.,
the attempt to subsume the a priori validity of the laws of logic under psychology. Husserl establishes a separate field for research in
logic, philosophy, and phenomenology, independently from the empirical sciences.[31]

Transcendental phenomenology after the Ideen (1913)

Some years after the publication of the Logical Investigations, Husserl made some key elaborations that led him to the distinction
between the act of consciousness n( oesis) and the phenomena at which it is directed (thenoemata).

"noetic" refers to the intentional act of consciousness (believing, willing, etc.)

"noematic" refers to the object or content (noema), which appears in the noetic acts (the believed, wanted, hated,
and loved ...).
What we observe is not the object as it is in itself, but how and inasmuch it is given in the intentional acts. Knowledge of essences
would only be possible by "bracketing" all assumptions about the existence of an external world and the inessential (subjective)
aspects of how the object is concretely given to us. This procedure Husserl called
epoché.
Husserl in a later period concentrated more on the ideal, essential structures of consciousness. As he wanted to exclude any
hypothesis on the existence of external objects, he introduced the method of phenomenological reduction to eliminate them. What
was left over was the pure transcendental ego, as opposed to the concrete empirical ego. Now Transcendental Phenomenologyis the
study of the essential structures that are left in pure consciousness: This amounts in practice to the study of the noemata and the
relations among them. The philosopher Theodor Adorno criticised Husserl's concept of phenomenological epistemology in his
metacritique Against Epistemology, which is anti-foundationalist in its stance.

Transcendental phenomenologists includeOskar Becker, Aron Gurwitsch, and Alfred Schütz.

Realist phenomenology
After Husserl's publication of the Ideen in 1913, many phenomenologists took a critical stance towards his new theories. Especially
the members of the Munich group distanced themselves from his new transcendental phenomenology and preferred the earlier realist
phenomenology of the first edition of theLogical Investigations.

Realist phenomenologists include Adolf Reinach, Alexander Pfänder, Johannes Daubert, Max Scheler, Roman Ingarden, Nicolai
Hartmann, Dietrich von Hildebrand.

Existential phenomenology
Existential phenomenology differs from transcendental phenomenology by its rejection of the transcendental ego. Merleau-Ponty
objects to the ego's transcendence of the world, which for Husserl leaves the world spread out and completely transparent before the
conscious. Heidegger thinks of a conscious being as always already in the world. Transcendence is maintained in existential
phenomenology to the extent that the method of phenomenology must take a presuppositionless starting point – transcending claims
about the world arising from, for example, natural or scientific attitudes or theories of the
ontological nature of the world.

While Husserl thought of philosophy as a scientific discipline that had to be founded on a phenomenology understood as
epistemology, Martin Heidegger held a radically different view. Heidegger himself states their differences this way:

For Husserl, the phenomenological reduction is the method of leading phenomenological

vision from the natural attitude of the human being whose life is involved in the world of
things and persons back to the transcendental life of consciousness and its noetic-noematic
experiences, in which objects are constituted as correlates of consciousness. For us,
phenomenological reduction means leading phenomenological vision back from the
apprehension of a being, whatever may be the character of that apprehension, to the
understanding of the Being of this being (projecting upon the way it is unconcealed).[32]

According to Heidegger, philosophy was not at all a scientific discipline, but more fundamental than science itself. According to him
science is only one way of knowing the world with no special access to truth. Furthermore, the scientific mindset itself is built on a
much more "primordial" foundation of practical, everyday knowledge. Husserl was skeptical of this approach, which he regarded as
quasi-mystical, and it contributed to the divergence in their thinking.

Instead of taking phenomenology as prima philosophia or a foundational discipline, Heidegger took it as a metaphysical ontology:
"being is the proper and sole theme of philosophy... this means that philosophy is not a science of beings but of being."[32] Yet to
confuse phenomenology and ontology is an obvious error. Phenomena are not the foundation or Ground of Being. Neither are they
appearances, for, as Heidegger argues in Being and Time, an appearance is "that which shows itself in something else," while a
phenomenon is "that which shows itself in itself."

While for Husserl, in the epoché, being appeared only as a correlate of consciousness, for Heidegger being is the starting point. While
for Husserl we would have to abstract from all concrete determinations of our empirical ego, to be able to turn to the field of pure
consciousness, Heidegger claims that "the possibilities and destinies of philosophy are bound up with man's existence, and thus with
temporality and with historicality."[32]
However, ontological being and existential being are different categories, so Heidegger's conflation of these categories is, according
to Husserl's view, the root of Heidegger's error. Husserl charged Heidegger with raising the question of ontology but failing to answer
it, instead switching the topic to the Dasein, the only being for whom Being is an issue. That is neither ontology nor phenomenology,
according to Husserl, but merely abstract anthropology. To clarify, perhaps, by abstract anthropology, as a non-existentialist searching
for essences, Husserl rejected the existentialism implicit in Heidegger's distinction between beings qua existents as things in reality
and their Being as it unfolds in Dasein's own reflections on its being-in-the-world, wherein being becomes present to us, that is, is
unconcealed.[33]

Existential phenomenologists include: Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), Karl Jaspers (1883–1969),
Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty(1908–1961).

Eastern thought
Some researchers in phenomenology (in particular in reference to Heidegger's legacy) see possibilities of establishing dialogues with
traditions of thought outside of the so-called Western philosophy, particularly with respect to East-Asian thinking, and despite
perceived differences between "Eastern" and "Western".[34] Furthermore, it has been claimed that a number of elements within
phenomenology (mainly Heidegger's thought) have some resonance with Eastern philosophical ideas, particularly with Zen
Buddhism and Taoism.[35] According to Tomonobu Imamichi, the concept of Dasein was inspired – although Heidegger remained
silent on this – by Okakura Kakuzo's concept of das-in-der-Welt-sein (being in the world) expressed in The Book of Tea to describe
Zhuangzi's philosophy, which Imamichi's teacher had offered to Heidegger in 1919, after having studied with him the year before.[36]

There are also recent signs of the reception of phenomenology (and Heidegger's thought in particular) within scholarly circles
focused on studying the impetus of metaphysics in the history of ideas in Islam and Early Islamic philosophy such as in the works of
the Lebanese philosopher Nader El-Bizri;[37] perhaps this is tangentially due to the indirect influence of the tradition of the French
Orientalist and phenomenologist Henri Corbin, and later accentuated through El-Bizri's dialogues with the Polish phenomenologist
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.[38]

In addition, the work of Jim Ruddy in the field of comparative philosophy, combined the concept of Transcendental Ego in Husserl's
phenomenology with the concept of the primacy of self-consciousness in the work of Sankaracharya. In the course of this work,
Ruddy uncovered a wholly new eidetic phenomenological science, which he called "convergent phenomenology." This new
phenomenology takes over where Husserl left off, and deals with the constitution of relation-like, rather than merely thing-like, or
"intentional" objectivity.[39]

Technoethics

Phenomenological approach to technology

James Moor has argued that computers show up policy vacuums that require new thinking and the establishment of new policies.[40]
Others have argued that the resources provided by classical ethical theory such as utilitarianism, consequentialism and deontological
ethics is more than enough to deal with all the ethical issues emer .[41]
ging from our design and use of information technology

For the phenomenologist the 'impact view' of technology as well as the constructivist view of the technology/society relationships is
valid but not adequate (Heidegger 1977, Borgmann 1985, Winograd and Flores 1987, Ihde 1990, Dreyfus 1992, 2001). They argue
that these accounts of technology, and the technology/society relationship, posit technology and society as if speaking about the one
does not immediately and already draw upon the other for its ongoing sense or meaning. For the phenomenologist, society and
technology co-constitute each other; they are each other's ongoing condition, or possibility for being what they are. For them
technology is not just the artifact. Rather, the artifact already emerges from a prior 'technological' attitude towards the world
(Heidegger 1977).
Heidegger's approach (pre-technological age)
For Heidegger the essence of technology is the way of being of modern humans—a way of conducting themselves towards the world
—that sees the world as something to be ordered and shaped in line with projects, intentions and desires—a 'will to power' that
manifests itself as a 'will to technology'.[42] Heidegger claims that there were other times in human history, a pre-modern time, where
[42]
humans did not orient themselves towards the world in a technological way—simply as resources for our purposes.

However, according to Heidegger this 'pre-technological' age (or mood) is one where humans' relation with the world and artifacts,
their way of being disposed, was poetic and aesthetic rather than technological (enframing).[42] There are many who disagree with
Heidegger's account of the modern technological attitude as the 'enframing' of the world.[43] For example, Andrew Feenberg argues
that Heidegger's account of modern technology is not borne out in contemporary everyday encounters with technology.[42] Christian
.[44]
Fuchs has written on the anti-Semitism rooted in Heidegger's view of technology

The Hubert Dreyfus approach (contemporary society)

In critiquing the artificial intelligence (AI) programme, Hubert Dreyfus (1992) argues that the way skill development has become
understood in the past has been wrong. He argues, this is the model that the early artificial intelligence community uncritically
adopted. In opposition to this view, he argues, with Heidegger, that what we observe when we learn a new skill in everyday practice
is in fact the opposite. We most often start with explicit rules or preformulated approaches and then move to a multiplicity of
particular cases, as we become an expert. His argument draws directly on Heidegger's account in "Being and Time" of humans as
beings that are always already situated in-the-world. As humans 'in-the-world', we are already experts at going about everyday life, at
dealing with the subtleties of every particular situation; that is why everyday life seems so obvious. Thus, the intricate expertise of
everyday activity is forgotten and taken for granted by AI as an assumed starting point.[42] What Dreyfus highlighted in his critique
of AI was the fact that technology (AI algorithms) does not make sense by itself. It is the assumed, and forgotten, horizon of
everyday practice that makes technological devices and solutions show up as meaningful. If we are to understand technology we need
to 'return' to the horizon of meaning that made it show up as the artifacts we need, want and desire. We need to consider how these
technologies reveal (or disclose) us.[42]

See also
Antipositivism Phenomenological sociology
Deconstruction Phenomenology (architecture)
Ecophenomenology Phenomenology of religion
Emergy Phenomenology (psychology)
Existentialism Philosophical anthropology
Geneva School Poststructuralism
Gestalt therapy Psychodrama
Hermeneutics Qualia
Heterophenomenology Social constructionism
Ideasthesia Structuralism
Important publications in phenomenological Structuration theory
psychology Technoethics
Phenomenography

References
1. Zahavi, Dan (2003), Husserl's Phenomenology, Stanford: Stanford University Press
2. Farina, Gabriella (2014) Some reflections on the phenomenological method. Dialogues in Philosophy
, Mental and
Neuro Sciences, 7(2):50-62.http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-A14-07.htm
 3. Menon, Sangeetha; Anindya Sinha; B.V . Sreekantan (2014). Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Consciousness and
the Self (https://books.google.com/?id=Pg-7BAAAQBAJ&pg=P A172&lpg=PA172&dq=phenomenology+essential+pro
perties+and+structures+of+experience#v=onepage&q=phenomenology%20essential%20properties%20and%20stru
ctures%20of%20experience&f=false). New Youk, Dordrecht, London: Springer. p. 172. ISBN 978-81-322-1586-8.
Retrieved 17 December 2015.
4. Orbe, Mark P. (2009). Phenomenology. In S. Littlejohn, & K. Foss (Eds.), Encyclopedia of communication theory
. (pp.
750-752). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
5. Rollinger, Robin (1999), Husserl's Position in the School of Brentano, Kluwer
6. Husserl, Edmund. "The Crisis of European Sciences, Part IIIB § 57. The fateful separation of transcendental
philosophy and psychology"(https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/husserl2.htm).
Marxists.org. Marxists.org. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
7. Husserl, Edmund. The Crisis of the European Sciences and T
ranscendental Phenomenology. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1970, pg. 240.
8. Natanson, M. (1973). Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite T
asks. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
9. Safranski, R. (1998). Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
10. Roslyn Wallach Bologh, Dialectical Phenomenology: Marx's Method, Routledge, 2009, p. 16.
11. Smith, David Woodruff (2007), Husserl, London-New York: Routledge
12. Bob Sandmeyer, Husserl's Constitutive Phenomenology: Its Problem and Promise
, Routledge, 2009, p. 15.
13. Partially based on Schuhmann, Karl (2004), ""Phänomenologie": Eine Begriffsgeschichtilche Reflexion", in
Leijenhorst, Cees; Steenbakkers, Piet,Karl Schuhmann. Selected Papers on Phenomenology , Dordrecht / Boston /
London: Kluwer, pp. 1–33
14. Ernst Benz, Christian Kabbalah: Neglected Child of Theology
15. Lambert, Johann Heinrich (1772). Anmerkungen und Zusätze zur Entwerfung der Land- und Himmelscharten.on
V J.
H. Lambert (1772.) Hrsg. von A. Wangerin. Mit 21 Textfiguren. (xml). W. Engelmann, reprint 1894.
16. Phenomenology – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/)
.
17. Cf. interpretative phenomenological analysisin psychological qualitative research.
18. Katinka Waelbers, Doing Good with Technologies: Taking Responsibility for the Social Role of Emerging
Technologies, Springer, 2011, p. 77.
19. Suzi Adams, "Towards a Post-Phenomenology of Life: Castoriadis' Naturphilosophie" (http://cosmosandhistory.org/in
dex.php/journal/article/view/108/216), Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy
, Vol. 4,
Nos. 1–2 (2008).
20. Donn Welton, The New Husserl: A Critical Reader, Indiana University Press, 2003, p. 261.
21. Wheeler, Michael (12 October 2011)."Martin Heidegger – 3.1 The Turn and the Contributions to Philosophy" (http://p
lato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/#TurCon). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
22. Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Dermot Moran (eds.),The Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity , Springer, 2014, p.
292; Douglas Low, Merleau-Ponty in Contemporary Context, Transaction Publishers, 2013, p. 21; Jack Reynolds,
Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity
, Ohio University Press, 2004, p. 192.
23. Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008.
24. J. Kevin O'Regan, Erik Myin, Alva Noë, "Towards an Analytic Phenomenology: TheConcepts of 'Bodiliness' and
'Grabbiness'", Seeing, Thinking and Knowing, vol. 38 (2004), pp. 103–114; Wolfgang Huemer, The Constitution of
Consciousness: A Study in Analytic Phenomenology , Routledge, 2005.
25. John Langshaw Austin (1911—1960) – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(http://www.iep.utm.edu/austin/)
26. Paul Crowther, Phenomenologies of Art and Vision: A Post-Analytic Turn, Bloomsbury, 2013, p. 161.
27. Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, Cambridge University Press (2000). Pp. 159–160. This use of
the word evidence may seem strange in English, but is more common in German, which is the language Husserl
wrote in.
28. Sokolowski, Introduction, pp. 160–161.
29. I.e. if A loves B, loving is a real part of A's conscious activity –Noesis – but gets its sense from the general concept
of loving, which has an abstract or ideal meaning, as "loving" has a meaning in the English language independently
of what an individual means by the word when they use it.
30. For a full account of the controversy and a review of positions taken, see David W
oodruff Smith, Husserl, Routledge,
2007, pp304-311.
31. On the Logical Investigations, see Zahavi, Dan; Stjernfelt, Frederik, eds. (2002),One Hundred Years of
Phenomenology (Husserl's Logical Investigations Revisited) , Dordrecht / Boston / London: Kluwer; and Mohanty,
Jitendra Nath, ed. (1977),Readings on Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations , Den Haag: Nijhoff
32. Heidegger, Martin (1975), "Introduction" (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/heidegge.ht
m), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Indiana University Press
33. I have attempted to respond to the request for clarification of Heidegger's distinction between being and Being. My
info source was http://www.uni.edu/boedeker/NNhHeidegger2.doc. It was not copied and pasted but rephrased for
copyright reasons.
34. See for instance references to Heidegger's "A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer," in On
the Way to Language (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). Heidegger himself had contacts with some leading
Japanese intellectuals, including members of theKyoto School, notably Hajime Tanabe, Kuki Shūzō and Kiyoshi
Miki.
35. An account given by Paul Hsao (inHeidegger and Asian Thought) records a remark by Chang Chung-Yuan claiming
that "Heidegger is the only Western Philosopher who not only intellectually understands but has intuitively grasped
Taoist thought"
36. Tomonobu Imamichi, In Search of Wisdom. One Philosopher's Journey, Tokyo, International House of Japan, 2004
(quoted by Anne Fagot-Largeau during herlesson (http://www.college-de-france.fr/default/EN/all/phi_sci/p11846768
30986.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20090206183341/http://www .college-de-france.fr/default/EN/all/ph
i_sci/p1184676830986.htm)6 February 2009 at theWayback Machine. at the Collège de France on 7 December
2006).
37. See for instance: Nader El-Bizri, The Phenomenological Quest betweenAvicenna and Heidegger (Binghamton, N.Y.:
Global Publications SUNY, 2000) ISBN 1-58684-005-3; refer also to many of his other studies and commentaries on
Heidegger, including one of his latest studies: Nader El-Bizri, 'On Dwelling: Heideggerian Allusions to Architectural
Phenomenology', Studia UBB. Philosophia, Vol. 60, No. 1 (2015): 5-30
38. A book-series under the title:Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue(https://www.springer.c
om/series/6137) has been recently established bySpringer (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht) in association
with the World Phenomenology Institute(http://www.phenomenology.org). This initiative has been initiated by the
Polish phenomenologistAnna-Teresa Tymieniecka, editor of Analecta Husserliana, and is co-edited by Nader El-
Bizri.
39. See the thesis, "Convergent Phenomenology
," presented to the University of Madras, June 1979.
40. Moor, J. H. (1985). "What Is Computer Ethics?" In T. W. Bynum (ed.), Computersand Ethics. Blackwell.
41. Bernard, G. (1999). Common Morality and Computing. Ethics and Informationechnology
T 1(1).
42. Introna, L. (2005) Disclosing the Digital Face: The ethics of facial recognition systems, Ethics and Information
Technology, 7(2)
43. Feenberg, A. (1999) 'Technology and Meaning', in Questioning Technology, London and New York: Routledge.
44. Fuchs, Christian (2015) "Martin Heidegger's Anti-Semitism: Philosophy ofechnology
T and the Media in the Light of
the Black Notebooks." Triple-C Vol 13, No 1. Accessed 4 May 2017. <http://www.triple-
c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/650/690>

Further reading
A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism
. Edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. W
rathall. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2009)
Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics. Edited by Hans Rainer Sepp and Lester Embree. (Series: Contributions
To Phenomenology, Vol. 59) Springer, Dordrecht / Heidelberg / London / New Y
ork 2010. ISBN 978-90-481-2470-1
The IAP LIBRARY offers very fine sources for Phenomenology
.
The London Philosophy Study Guideoffers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity
with the subject: Phenomenology
Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology(Oxford: Routledge, 2000) – Charting phenomenology from
Brentano, through Husserl and Heidegger
, to Gadamer, Arendt, Levinas, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida.
Robert Sokolowski, "Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000) – An excellent
non-historical introduction to phenomenology
.
Herbert Spiegelberg, "The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction," 3rd ed. (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1983). The most comprehensive source on the development of the phenomenological movement.
David Stewart and Algis Mickunas, "Exploring Phenomenology: A Guide to the Field and its Literature" (Athens: Ohio
University Press 1990)
Michael Hammond, Jane Howarth, and Russell Kent, "Understanding Phenomenology" (Oxford: Blackwell 1995)
Christopher Macann, Four Phenomenological Philosophers: Husserl, Heidegger
, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty(New York:
Routledge: 1993)
Jan Patočka, "Qu'est-ce que la phénoménologie?", In:Qu'est-ce que la phénoménologie?, ed. and trans. E. Abrams
(Grenoble: J. Millon 1988), pp. 263–302. An answer to the question, What is phenomenology?, from a student of
both Husserl and Heidegger and one of the most important phenomenologists of the latter half of the twentieth
century.
William A. Luijpen and Henry J. Koren, "A First Introduction to Existential Phenomenology" (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press 1969)
Richard M. Zaner, "The Way of Phenomenology" (Indianapolis: Pegasus 1970)
Hans Köchler, Die Subjekt-Objekt-Dialektik in der transzendentalen Phänomenologie. Das Seinsproblem zwischen
Idealismus und Realismus. (Meisenheim a. G.: Anton Hain, 1974) (German)
Hans Köchler, Phenomenological Realism: Selected Essays(Frankfurt a. M./Bern: Peter Lang, 1986)
Mark Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity(Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Seidner, Stanley S. (1989). "Köhler's Dilemma", In Issues of Language Assessment. vol 3. Ed., Stanley S.Seidner.
Springfield, Il.: State Board of Education. pp. 5–6.
Pierre Thévenaz, "What is Phenomenology?" (Chicago: Quadrangle Books 1962)
ed. James M. Edie, "An Invitation to Phenomenology" (Chicago: Quadrangle Books 1965) – A collection of seminal
phenomenological essays.
ed. R. O. Elveton, "The Phenomenology of Husserl: Selected Critical Readings" (Seattle: Noesis Press 2000) – Key
essays about Husserl's phenomenology.
ed. Laura Doyle, Bodies of Resistance: New Phenomenologies of Politics, Agency
, and Culture. Evanston, Illinois:
Northwestern University Press, 2001.
eds. Richard Zaner and Don Ihde, "Phenomenology and Existentialism" (Nework:
Y Putnam 1973) – Contains many
key essays in existential phenomenology
.
Robert Magliola, Phenomenology and Literature(Purdue University Press, 1977; 1978) systematically describes, in
Part One, the influence of Husserl, Heidegger
, and the French Existentialists on the Geneva School and other forms
of what becomes known as "phenomenological literary criticism"; and in Partwo T describes phenomenological
literary theory in Roman Ingarden and Mikel Dufrenne.
Albert Borgmann and his work in philosophy of technology
.
eds. Natalie Depraz, Francisco Varela, Pierre Vermersch, On Becoming Aware: A Pragmatics of Experiencing
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins 2003) – searches for the sources and the means for a disciplined practical approach
to exploring human experience.
Don Ihde, "Experimental Phenomenology: An Introduction" (Albany
, NY: SUNY Press)
Sara Ahmed, "Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects Others" (Durham: Duke University Press 2006)
Michael Jackson, Existential Anthropology
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness
Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind. London: Routledge, 2007.
Jean-François Lyotard, Phenomenology, SUNY Press, 1991.
Steinbock, A. J. (1995).Home and Beyond, Generative Phenomenology After Husserl.Northwestern University
Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
. (Online)
Suzi Adams, "Towards a Post-Phenomenology of Life: Castoriadis' Naturphilosophie", Cosmos and History: The
Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy
, Vol 4, No 1–2 (2008). (Online)
Espen Dahl, Phenomenology and the Holy: Religious experience after Husserl(London, SCM Press, 2010).
 Arkadiusz Chrudzimski and Wolfgang Huemer (eds.), Phenomenology and Analysis: Essays on Central European
Philosophy, Ontos Verlag, 2004.
D. W. Smith and A. L. Thomasson (eds.),Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Mind, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005.

Journals
Bulletin d'analyse phénoménologique
Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy
, Phenomenological
Psychology, and the Arts
Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology
Research in Phenomenology
Newsletter of Phenomenology(online-newsletter)
Studia PhaenomenologicaISSN 1582-5647
Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology
The Roman Ingarden Philosophical Research Centre
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Continental Philosophy Review
Human Studies
Husserl Studies
Phenomenology & Practice
Journal Phaenomenologie

Book series
Edmund Husserl: Gesammelte Werke
Edmund Husserl: Collected Works
Edmund Husserl: Dokumente
Edmund Husserl: Materialien
Analecta Husserliana
Phaenomenologica
Contributions to Phenomenology
Studies in German Idealism

External links
What is Phenomenology?
About Edmund Husserl
Phenomenology – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Phenomenology – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Organization of Phenomenology Organizations
Romanian Society for Phenomenology
Phenomenology Online
Dialectical Phenomenology
The New Phenomenology
Springer's academic Phenomenology program
Phenomenology and First Philosophy
Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology , and Practical Philosophy
Studia Phaenomenologica
Phenomenology Research Center
 Open Commons of Phenomenology

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