Husserl and Heidegger: Foundations of Phenomenology

Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger

What is Phenomenology?

• Phenomenology is what shows itself: the patent, manifest.
• It is also an access method to phenomena to seek their basis.
• According to Martin Heidegger, it is through the phenomenological method that the meaning of being is revealed.
• It is a purely descriptive method based on shared experiences. From the known world and intersubjective experiences (a method of participatory research), signals are obtained, providing guidelines for interpreting the diversity of symbols. From this, it is possible to interpret social processes and structures.
• It examines all contents of consciousness to determine if these contents are real, ideal, imaginary, etc.
• Phenomenological consciousness suspends judgment (epoché), allowing one to grasp what is given and describe it exactly in its purity.
• Phenomenology presupposes nothing.
• This method can be considered an absolute positivism because it refuses to accept any reality other than the facts themselves.

Edmund Husserl's Contributions

• Edmund Husserl provides a descriptive analysis of subjective experiences, as they are given in experience.
• Husserl, in some ways, improved upon the proposal made by Brentano, calling it phenomenological and basing it on the "intentionality of consciousness," as this is central to explaining the person's consciousness better: every act has intentionality.
• Husserl also studied the structure of mental phenomena and their related features from target objects, whether real or unreal, identifying two components:
  • Noesis: Linked to the desire for an object, through a mental act.
  • Noema: Refers to whether the object is real or unreal.

Martin Heidegger's Existential View

• According to Martin Heidegger and existential phenomenology, it is based on a critique of Husserl's phenomenology.
• Martin Heidegger himself emphasizes seeing from what is shown, and making it visible as it shows itself.
• In Martin Heidegger's History of Being, the main objective is to understand the links between the development of the question of being in philosophy and Western history.