Overview

Phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: things as they appear to our experience. It asks: What is it like to experience something? It puts aside questions of “objective reality” to focus on the subjective viewpoint.

Core Idea

The core idea is “To the things themselves!” (Husserl). We should describe experience exactly as it happens, without scientific or theoretical biases.

Formal Definition

The study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its Intentionality (being directed toward something).

Intuition

Science explains the wavelength of light (Red). Phenomenology describes the experience of seeing Red.

  • Bracketing (Epoché): Suspending judgment about whether the world is “real” to focus purely on the experience itself.

Examples

  • Heidegger’s Hammer: To us, a hammer isn’t an object with mass/shape; it’s “ready-to-hand” (a tool for hammering). We only notice it as an object (“present-at-hand”) when it breaks.
  • The Gaze (Sartre): The experience of being looked at by another person changes my world. I become an object in their world.

Common Misconceptions

  • Misconception: It’s just introspection.
    • Correction: Introspection is looking inside. Phenomenology is analyzing the structure of how we look at the world.
  • Misconception: It denies reality.
    • Correction: It doesn’t deny it; it just says our primary access to reality is through experience.
  • Existentialism: Grew out of phenomenology.
  • Qualia: The subjective component of sense perceptions.
  • Ontology: Heidegger used phenomenology to do ontology (study of Being).

Applications

  • Psychology: Understanding how patients experience their illness.
  • Architecture: Designing spaces based on how they are experienced, not just how they look.

Criticism and Limitations

  • Solipsism: Can be hard to escape the “prison of the self.”
  • Difficulty: The texts (especially Heidegger) are notoriously difficult and jargon-heavy.

Further Reading

  • Ideas I by Edmund Husserl
  • Being and Time by Martin Heidegger