Phenomenology via Kupers (Definitions)

Transcendental  - in the Kantian sense means an investigation concerned with the ways objects are experienced, as well as the a priori conditions for the possibility for such experience and knowledge. Transcendental phenomenology focuses on the way things are given. For Husserl this means focusing on phenomena and the meanings that they have for us, and asking how these meanings are constituted. Constituted does not mean fabricated – the mind does not fabricate the world. To constitute means to bring to awareness, to disclose. Transcendental phenomenology attempts to reconstruct the structures that are underlying and making possible these constitutive achievements.

Epoche – (literally astention) is borrowed from the Greek skeptics to refer to the questioning of assumptions in order to fully examine a phenomenon. By suspending our beliefs, we are open to new experiences, we allow the object of our experience to present itself to us in new form.

Bracketing –the differential setting aside of a portion of an inquiry, so as to look to the whole. Natural attitude is set aside so that the researcher may begin with the things themselves.

Phenomenological reduction – the consideration of the basic elements of an enquiry, without concern for what is accidental or trivial. The idea of ‘Ruckfuhrung’ –drawing back from what appears to how it shows itself re-flects the inquiry from a straightforward orientation, towards consciousness. The aim of reduction is to re-achieve a direct and primitive contact with the world rather than conceptualise it. What is left over is pure transcendental ego as opposed to the concrete empirical ego. The reduction to the sphere of immanence can then be followed in heuristic, hermeneutic reduction. Methodologically this is the movement from fact to essence via eidetic reduction.

Eidetic reduction – a shift to consider things not as realities but as instances of realities, as pure possibilities rather than actualities. It is proposed that in this way essences – universal and unchangeable structures- can be determined. For Husserl, this second reduction was necessary to meet the demands of empirical, rigorous, science.

Husserlian transcendental phenomenological reduction therefore follows the Kantian notion of transcendental consciousness, the creation of time awareness through protention and retention, insomuch as self-constitution. Only based on realisation of this process of sedimentation through time can a person make their comportment transparent.

Eidos – there is free variation or imagined variation of a reduced thing to a common eidos, or variation that changes. These variations can be put into the service of analysis – seeing aesthetic forms, manifesting empathy, improvisation through now-ness and so on. It is through these multiple variations that an ‘Aha!’ arises, a vision which connects the structures and that carries the force of conviction.

Lebenswelt (life world) – the world as it is lived and experienced by conscious subjects – the world where we share knowledge which is useful for our ‘daily practices’ and our ‘daily circumstantial truths’.

Ref:

Kupers, W. (2009). The Status and Relevance of Phenomenology for Integral Research, Integral Review, 5 (1), 51-95.