Husserl and Phenomenological Reduction

From the wellspring of subjectivity is made manifest all possible forms.

>>9377752
Phenomenology's program was descriptive, or based 'extro-spectively'. Proust's view of interactive memory (and therefore of 'time' as we actually experience it) could be cited as one instance of how the program works.

>>9377752
These threads prove that 99% users of /lit/ don't read. Anyways, the idea of phenomenological reduction is to acquire the point of view that is, in the broadest sense, free of all prejudice. It is radical, it requires you to suspend the natural worldview. Words don't work here all that well because phenomenological reduction is a process, it requires you to meditate. There is a reason why Husserl claims in his Crisis of European Sciences that if you are successful with your Cartesian meditations your worldview will shift completely, as if you experienced a revelation. Good luck with your meditations.

>>9378176
Thanks for the explanation. I'm very new to philosophy, so I keep getting a bunch of things mixed up. I'm not that well-read, but that's something I'm trying to change, as you can see.

>>9378191
You're welcome. I'm no expert myself, but phenomenology is difficult. I suggest you to go through some articles online that explain the fundamental notions of phenomenology, e.g. intentionality. Merleau-Ponty's preface to his masterpiece, Phenomenology of Perception, could be a good starting point. He explains the most basic things in those 20 pages.

>>9378218
Yeah, I bought a book about all 4 of the major writers: Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. While I think I have kind of a small grasp on their philosophy, I felt like I didn't have enough philosophical baggage to understand several of ther concepts. Maybe starting with greeks isn't that much of a meme.

Thanks for the rec, I'll definately check his introduction.

>>9378243
Reading Plato and Aristotle is definitely not a meme.

>>9378243

You don't need to read any prerequisites to understand Heidegger. In fact, it's probably better that way until Heideggerian metaphysics takes off as its own field instead of an attempt to glean all possible meaning from Being and Time. Once you understand the question of Being, the pre-ontological understanding necessary for Being-in-the-world, the ontico-ontological difference and its application in terms of the existentielle v. existentiale constituents of beings, and the recognition of epistemology as "founded-in" an understanding of being, then you're pretty much set with what Heidegger aims to accomplish.

You'll gravitate away from understanding metaphysics as an attempt to outline substance-based structures of reality and towards a thing-based metaphysics, kinds of Being do things in the world possess and what consequences that presents for us as beings who, in our Being, take a stand on what it means to be in our everyday involvements.

>>9378176
I have a very hard time understanding Husserl because a lot of his early stuff seems oddly reminiscent of the kind of pre-Vienna Circle logic and metaphysics (of math etc.) that the neo-Kantians were doing.

Can you please help me out with how I'm meant to approach Husserl? I understand phenomenology in theory, I have read Brentano on intentionality, I've read Being & Time.

I feel like I can sort of think "phenomenologically," but it's more like I'm thinking dialectically, while being mindful of hermeneutic prejudice etc. I definitely haven't experienced the kind of revolution that some people report from reading Husserl, including Heidegger himself. I'd really like to know where I'm supposed to start, which of his writings are transitional and don't give the full picture, etc.

>>9378176
>free of all prejudice
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im at all familiar with husserl but are there any similarities bet. his thought and mysticism? whenever i hear explanations of husserl, i'm reminded of someone like eckhart but then again it may just be a surface level impression

>>9379150
I know some gnostics somewhat interested in his transcendental turn but not sure of the extent of it. Haven't heard anything major. Think they just like transcendental ego types over against Heideggerian and poststructuralists who think we're just a porous bundle of behaviours with no "self."

>>9378280
there is no way to approach husserl really - his work is all over the place. He starts out in the times of neo kantianism that opposed the materialists and tries to radiacalize this thread with the idea of intentionality that he takes from brentano - who wasn't pleased at all by this application...

He then shifts to back to a more conservative kantianism as he gets into the university institution at freiburg, building a roof of transcendental idealism on top. here, the thing is found in the object of intentionality, which he calls noema as opposed to the process of intending called noesis. objectivity as found in subjective anschauung.

this poses problems - which he then unfolds in all his studies. these give phenomenology its 'flesh', because it is the first philosophy that really lets you 'do research' - at least that is what Heidegger found appealing.

At the end of his work and life, husserl was forced into exile and this is where his work really got interesting, although he didn't manage to complete it. the crisis, that introduces the lifeworld poses, again, a major shift, that orients objectiviy not "upwards" into an anticipated singularity of subjectivity as the last resort of pure obejctivity, but rather "downwards" into the historical situation of the observer. there - still kantian idealist - he tried to find the last grounding of all world-experience. the points of failure of this project are really the most interesing parts - he basically lets his final work drift into aporias, and at last suggests a rather pessimistic view of perception. one of human defect.