Introduction to Phenomenolgy
Course Materials
Course Outline
Introduction to Phenomenology is a level one introductory course that is part of a larger three module Philosophy of Consciousness series. The other higher level modules are Science, Consciousness and the Brain, and Language and Meaning. Both these modules assume students have already completed this introductory course. The idea of The Introduction to Phenomenology is to guide each participant into an immediate experience of what it means to engage in a phenomenological inquiry. So the course is less concerned with conveying information about phenomenology, and more concerned with students gaining direct insight into the state of witnessing that Husserl first encountered in his Logical Investigations at the turn of the nineteenth century. Here we take the way of The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Husserl’s last published work). Along this way we examine Husserl’s understanding of phenomenology as the natural outcome of the evolution of Western philosophy from Descartes to Kant. Then we go into the heart of his work by examining and enacting his phenomenological reduction.
Topic List
Topic One: What is Philosophy?
Lecture Outline: This is an introductory lecture and so involves everyone introducing themselves and my giving an overview of the course. As this was the first time I had taught the course using Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences text (before I had used the Cartesian Meditations), there was no worked-out plan as to where the course was heading. Instead we set out into the text to see how far we could get. This week’s lecture involved going through the first Chapter of the Crisis (see the Crisis reading, §1 – §7) and asking the question “What is philosophy?” by examining Husserl’s final published answer.
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Topic Two: Science and Objectivism
Lecture Outline: This class follows Husserl’s path into phenomenology by looking into the underlying meaning or entelechy he saw in the development of modern science and philosophy. In the readings we are jumping from the introduction of the Crisis to sections §10-13 (Crisis Reading §10-13). This misses out sections §8-9 which are concerned with the mathematical foundations of modern science. These sections are significant in themselves but I deal with them in another course (Science, Consciousness and the Brain) which some of you have already attended. The key thing this week is for us to gain an understanding of the origins of the dualism of mind and matter in the birth of modern science. So we shall be looking at how Galilean science split the psychic world from the world of physical bodies and how this played out in the development of psychology in the empiricism of Locke, Berkeley and Hume (Crisis Reading §22-24).
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Topic Three: Descartes and Transcendentalism
Lecture Outline: This week we continue to follow Husserl’s path into phenomenology by looking into the underlying meaning or entelechy he saw in the development of modern science and philosophy. Due to our more detailed treatment of Galilean science in Topic Two (see Part 1 of the lecture recording) we did not finish all the material as planned. I have therefore split the original Topic Two into two lectures (Topic Two covered §10-13 of the Crisis and this week we will cover §14-20 plus Descartes’ first two Meditations. That means if you did last week’s reading then there’s no new reading for this week. However, I suggest you re-read all of Crisis §10-20 as I think it will be clearer now we have had the lecture. And for anyone who hasn’t done the readings yet now is your chance to catch up. (Don’t forget Descartes’ first two Meditations – they are quite essential for any kind of understanding of modern philosophy, quite apart from understanding Husserl).
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Topic Four: Kant and the Life World
Lecture Outline: In the reading this week we shall enter into Part IIIA of the Crisis where Husserl begins his own investigation into the pre-given life-world. To begin he contrasts his approach with that of Kant – arguing that Kant was unable to find his way into true phenomenology because of his rationalistic presuppositions. Our focus here is not on Kant and we will not attempt to understand his Critique of Pure Reason – that would require another course of equivalent length to this one. Our interest is only in how Husserl understands Kant as a kind of first step toward the true task of transcendental philosophy: the uncovering of the life-world and the transcendental subjectivity that lies behind it.
(Note: in the lecture we finished off last week’s material on Descartes and so only covered §28 of the reading on Kant. We will therefore cover §29-33 next week in Topic 5.)
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Topic Five: Kant and Transcendental Subjectivity
Lecture Outline: Due to finishing the material on Descartes last week combined with my usual digressions we only covered §28 of the Husserl reading on Kant. I think there is enough left in that reading (in §29-33) to keep us busy this week, so there is no new Husserl reading (§28-33 from the Crisis are available in Topic 4). However I am aware we have been looking at Kant without having read him, so I am uploading the beginning sections of the Critique of Pure Reason. There is around 100 pages of material here, the Transcendental Aesthetic, Transcendental Logic, and the Analytic of Concepts. This includes the Transcendental Deduction that Husserl mentions in our reading and the all important sections on space and time (in the Transcendental Aesthetic). We will not be going through this in class so it is not required reading, but it will help in understanding Husserl’s references to Kant – and in any case, these sections of the Critique are as foundational to Western philosophy as Descartes’ Meditations, so are worth reading in their own right. (Note: this is the 1896 First Edition of the Critique so the translation differs in certain respects from the modern English translations – we are using this older edition as it is out of copyright).
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Topic Six: The Epoche of the Objective Sciences
Lecture Outline: After the half-term break we shall be examining Husserl’s way into phenomenology, starting with the epochē of the objective sciences, as explained in §34-35 of the Crisis (see this week’s reading). Until now we have been laying the ground for this epochē by looking at the objectivism of modern science and the split this has caused in our understanding of being. Now we shall look at how this split can be bridged by examining how objective science is grounded in our immediate experience of the life-world.
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Topic Seven: The Universal Epoche
Lecture Outline: This week we arrive at the true door into phenomenology, the universal epochē, as introduced in §36-41 of the Crisis (see this week’s reading). Although we have been speaking of, and alluding to the transcendental subjectivity that constitutes the validities of our immediate experience of the life-world, it is only now that Husserl finally makes explicit his way into this subjectivity.
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Topic Eight: Carrying Out the Reduction
Lecture Outline: Now we have encountered the universal epochē, our task is to explore what is revealed in this transcendental reduction of the world to the transcendental phenomenon “world.” This is described in §42-49 of the Crisis (see this week’s reading). It is here that we enter into the detail of Husserl’s transcendental investigation into the “how” of the world’s pre-givenness.
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Topic Nine: The Transcendental Ego
Lecture Outline: Husserl’s initial inquiry within the transcendental reduction asked after the transcendental constitution of the world and the things we perceive within the horizon of the world. He now finally turns toward the transcendental ego that enacts this constitution (see §50-55 of the Crisis in the attached reading). These sections conclude Husserl’s way into phenomenology by means of an inquiry back from the pregiven life-world. In Part IIIB of the Crisis he takes another route via a consideration of psychology – a route we will not be following in this course. That means we have come to the end of our investigation of the Crisis text and it only remains to assimilate what we have discovered into our deeper understanding of what it means to be conscious.
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Topic Ten: Course Review and Assignment
Lecture Outline: This week we will finish the topic nine material on the transcendental ego and then review the previous lectures to get an overall idea of the trajectory of the course. There is no new reading, just §50-55 from last week.
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