Phenomenological philosophy of Husserl. Phenomenology as a trend in philosophy: what is it Phenomenology is called


About philosophy briefly and clearly: PHILOSOPHY PHENOMENOLOGY. Everything basic, most important: very briefly about the philosophy of PHENOMENOLOGY. The essence of philosophy, concepts, trends, schools and representatives.


PHENOMENOLOGY

Phenomenology is a philosophical trend, the main direction of which is the desire to free philosophical consciousness from naturalistic attitudes, to achieve in the field philosophical analysis reflections of consciousness about their acts and about the content given in them, to reveal the limiting parameters of cognition, the initial foundations of cognitive activity. Briefly, phenomenology can be defined as the science of objects of experience.

As an independent philosophical direction, phenomenology took shape in the 1920s. 20th century in the works of E. Husserl. The starting point of phenomenology was an attempt to consider non-experiential and non-historical structures of consciousness that ensure its real functioning and completely coincide with the ideal meanings expressed in language and psychological experiences.

For Husserl, phenomenology is, first of all, the elucidation of the semantic space of consciousness, the identification of those invariant characteristics that make it possible to perceive the object of knowledge.

Phenomenology is based on the understanding of a phenomenon not as a phenomenon of something else, but as something that reveals itself and directly appears to consciousness.

The main method of phenomenology is the intuitive perception of ideal entities. There are several layers in such cognition: 1) linguistic means of expression; 2) mental experiences; 3) meanings as invariant structures of linguistic expressions.

Objective existence acquires meaning, being correlated with consciousness. According to Husserl, this also acquires an objective meaning. One of the main tasks of cognition is seen in the search for this correspondence. When objective being and consciousness are correlated, being becomes a phenomenon, and consciousness cognizes being. The phenomenon is represented in consciousness, and consciousness appears in the phenomenon as a dual unity, which includes cognitive acts and subject content.

The task of phenomenology is to reveal the meaning of an object that is obscured by opinion, superficial judgment, inaccurate word, incorrect assessment. To achieve this, it is necessary to abandon naturalistic attitudes that oppose being to consciousness.

The subject of phenomenology is the achievement of pure truths, a priori (pre-experimental) meanings, realized in language and psychological experience. These truths, conceivable in consciousness, are the lot of philosophy, which is defined by Husserl as the first philosophy. It is the science of the pure principles of consciousness and knowledge, it is the universal doctrine of method and methodology.

Cognition is considered as a stream of consciousness, internally organized and integral, independent of specific mental acts, of a specific subject of cognition and his activity. This is the main phenomenological setting, and on the way to its implementation, the understanding of the subject of cognition is achieved not as an empirical, but as a transcendental subject, as a receptacle of generally valid a priori truths. With these truths, he, as it were, fills with meaning the objects of reality, which are objects of knowledge; these objects acquire meaning and become those that correspond with consciousness, that is, they become phenomena.


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Phenomenology is a philosophical trend that seeks to free philosophical consciousness from naturalistic attitudes, to reach its own area philosophical knowledge- reflections of consciousness about their acts and about the content given in them, to reveal the initial foundations of the knowledge of human existence and culture.

Phenomenology (Greek, phainomenon - appearing and logos - teaching) literally means the doctrine of phenomena, that is, of phenomena. But this doctrine is not about phenomena in general, but about quite specific phenomena. For example, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, as the title suggests, was devoted to the phenomenon spirit, and more specifically - consciousness. But G. Hegel set himself the task of considering consciousness not in the form it is There is, but in the way it is is, that is, as if appears into the world. The duality of the concept of "phenomenon" lies in the fact that it means and the process of becoming and already become, that is, the result of becoming. However, it is possible to separate one from the other only through abstract thinking. A specific consideration is unity of both. In this sense, Hegel noted that "the essence of the matter is exhausted not by its goal, and their implementation, and not result There is valid whole, but the result together with its becoming.

Through such a concrete consideration manifests itself historicism Hegel's method. Because of this, the Russian Hegelian A.I. Herzen called Hegel's phenomenology "historical phenomenology". But just this historicism is not accepted at all non-classical philosophy. E. Husserl, who is rightfully considered the founder of phenomenology as a special direction in the philosophy of the 20th century, did not accept it, although his phenomenology is a non-historical phenomenology. The immediate predecessors of the phenomenological direction of philosophy were F. Brentano (E. Husserl was his student at the University of Vienna, where the latter taught philosophy) and K. Stumpf.

Husserl Edmund(1859-1938), was born in the small town of Prosnica (Prostežov) in Moravia in a middle class Jewish family. Father Abram Adolf Husserl was a merchant in handkerchiefs, his wife Julia, née Zelinger. The Husserl family had very deep family roots (15 generations) in the lands of Moravia. After the March Revolution of 1848, the German Jews gained equality, and therefore for the offspring of Ger I Husserl, the grandfather of the future philosopher, different paths in life turned out to be open. Edmund's brothers, Heinrich and Emil, inherited their father's business, and he was assigned to the main city school, previously inaccessible to Jews. Then he studied at the gymnasium in Vienna, and completed his studies at the German gymnasium in the city of Olmutz, where in 1876 he received a matriculation certificate. Since autumn, he continued his studies at the University of Leipzig, then Berlin and completes his studies at the University of Vienna, having received a mathematical education. Then two years of mandatory military service in Germany follow, and Husserl returns to Vienna, where he listens to lectures by Franz Bretano. During his studies in Vienna, he was greatly influenced by Karl Weierstrass, an outstanding German mathematician, developer of a system of rationalization of mathematical analysis, in which in 1883, after defending his master's thesis, Husserl became an assistant. Subsequently, Husserl taught at the universities of Halle (1887-1901, during which time he married Malvina, nee Stein Schneider, who gave birth to his daughter Elisabeth and two sons - Gerhard and Wolfgang), Göttingen (1901-1916 gg.), Freiburg (1916-1926). Methodological crisis in mathematics at the end XIX century, which arose as a result of contradictions in the field of the foundations of this exact science (the so-called "paradoxes" of set theory) led the mathematician Husserl to search for philosophical ways out of this crisis. His doctoral dissertation was devoted to this very issue. In 1891 he published his work entitled "Philosophy of Arithmetic". But Husserl is not satisfied with his own psychological substantiation of fundamental mathematical structures and he develops the problem of "pure logic". His first proper phenomenological work was "Logical Investigations". Fundamental for phenomenology, the problem of consciousness is derived by him from the problematic definition of the specifics of the ideal logical connection of meanings in theory, its separation from the associative connections of experiences in cognition and from the causal or functional connections of things. He raises the question of what are the structures of consciousness that define meanings as ideal unities, but do not themselves have either a psychological or a material-objective status. In the article "Philosophy as a Rigorous Science" Husserl declares a revolution in philosophy. He connects the essence of the revolution, firstly, with a turn to the non-psychological concept of subjectivity and, secondly, with a critique of naturalism, for which, according to Husserl, everything that exists is simply identified with physical nature, or the existence of a causally functional mental dependent on it is allowed. In the "naturalism" of the mind, he saw a danger not only for the theory of knowledge, but also for human culture as a whole, because naturalism seeks to make relative both the semantic givens of consciousness and absolute ideals and norms. Husserl summed up his philosophy in a report he read in Vienna in 1935, three years before his death - 26 April 1938: "The Crisis of European Mankind and Philosophy". In 1954, Husserl's handwritten work "The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology", written by him two years before his death, was published. This work and about 45 thousand more pages of the Husserlian archive were saved from the Nazis by the Belgian priest Hermann van Breda.

Husserl understood phenomenology as a new, strictly scientific philosophy about the phenomena of consciousness as pure entities that form the world of ideal being, about self-evident logical principles that make it possible to clear consciousness of empirical content in all its private specifics.

This is done using a multi-stage method of "phenomenological reduction", as a result of which the entire the world, all existing views, scientific theories and the very question of the existence of what is the subject of research. Thus, we seem to return to the things themselves in the form of a sphere of consciousness, free from relation and reality, but retaining all the richness of its content. Such a reduction, that is, the reduction of higher phenomena to lower, fundamental ones, is a method of phenomenological justification, a certain idealization. Consequently, phenomenology is essentially a science of fact, extremely generalized and idealized. Husserl himself called it a descriptive or descriptive science.

Phenomenology seeks to single out pure, that is, pre-objective, pre-symbolic consciousness, or "subjective flow" and to determine its features. This is done because consciousness is a very complex formation with various functions. By singling out pure consciousness, one can understand the essence of consciousness in general. The main characteristic of consciousness in general is its constant focus on the object (this is its meaning), that is intentionality (lat.- pursuit). Intentionality is considered as a property arising from the very activity of consciousness, characterizing its ability to create its own objective world, to be filled with content, to acquire meaning and significance. Husserl's slogan: "Back to the objects themselves!" - means the release of consciousness and the objective world from the causal and functional connections between them, as well as from their dialectical-mystical mutual transformation. Thus, pure consciousness as pure sense formation (intentionality) is separated from the scientific, ideological, mythological and everyday attitudes and schemes based on these connections. The movement towards objects is a recreation of the semantic field itself, the field of meanings between consciousness and objects.

Consciousness in its "pure" form, or the "absolute Self", which is at the same time the center of the flow of human consciousness, constructs the world, as it were, introducing "meanings" into it. All types of reality with which a person deals are explained from acts of consciousness. There is simply no objective reality that exists outside and independently of consciousness. Consciousness is explained from itself, reveals itself as a phenomenon, that is, a phenomenon.

Pure Consciousness - this is the self-purification of consciousness from the schemes, dogmas, stereotyped ways of thinking imposed on it, from attempts to find the basis of consciousness in what is not consciousness. Phenomenological method- this is the identification and description of the field of direct semantic conjugation of consciousness and the object, the field, the horizons of which do not contain hidden entities that are not manifested as meanings. In Husserl, the mutual irreducibility of consciousness and the world is expressed in the difference between three types of connections: 1) between things (objects and processes of the external world); 2) between mental acts and states; 3) between values. The connection of meanings is ideal, not logical, it is given only in the description as a process of meaning formation.

Evolutionary phenomenology highlights three essential moments of its existence: first- the emergence of diverse interpretations of phenomenology and the opposition of its two main variants - the teachings of E. Husserl and the theory of his student M. Heidegger (for a teacher, the only prerequisite for teaching is the possibility of describing the spontaneous semantic life of consciousness, a possibility that is rooted in consciousness itself; for his student - an interpretation of the fundamental structures of human existence, human being); second- application of the phenomenological method in psychology and psychiatry, ethics and aesthetics, law and sociology, religion and ontology, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of natural science, history and metaphysics; third- the influence of phenomenology on existentialism, personalism, hermeneutics and other philosophical currents; its wide distribution in Europe and America, Australia, Japan and other Asian countries.

Phenomenology is a philosophical doctrine, according to which the subject of research should be acts of consciousness in itself, cognized with the help of a special method. Its origin is associated with the name of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), as well as such outstanding thinkers of the 20th century as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Max Scheler, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others.

Evolution of the term "phenomenology":

1. In the 18th century it meant the theory of illusion. I. Kant, phenomenology is a new understanding of philosophy. G. Hegel, phenomenology is the path of knowledge from the suggestions of the sense organs to the knowledge of the absolute idea. E. Husserl, phenomenology is a method of existence, the meaning of the structures and connections of the process of cognition of the entire surrounding world.

The main ideas of phenomenology:

E. Husserl in his work "The Crisis of European Man and Philosophy" reveals the following. ideas:

1. Exploration of ways to obtain true knowledge without relying on psychological processes individual person.

2. It is important to explore the phenomena of consciousness by structuring scientific knowledge and the exploration of ideas that precede all science.

3. Env. the world of existence in reality, when studying it, one cannot follow established theories - this is the possibility of analyzing “pure consciousness”.

4. Consciousness develops the meaning of objects. Everyone comprehends what is happening in his own way and this is the meaning of his freedom.

M. Heidgger developed the trace. ideas of phenomenology in the work "Being and Time":

1. The task of a person is not to lose himself and be himself.

2. The actions of a person depend on his construction: in the face of death, everything stops. impossible; the joy of communicating with a loved one transforms the world; longing, grief make the world gray.

3. The study of human being is not a desire to conquer nature, but to delve into the essence of its existence.

4. a person's speech is a reflection of his being. The language of poetry is more important than the language of science.

J. P. Sartre developed the trace. ideas of phenomenology:

1. A person cannot be defined initially, he exists as a “blank slate”, and later becomes the way he forms himself. Man is a certain project, this is his freedom.



2. Man is the highest goal and value, but he is always incomplete, the main thing that allows a person to live is his actions.

M. Scheler "Man as a part of living nature to dominate himself and rise."

M. Merleau-Ponty. From the point of view of phenomenology, he perceived the ideas of Marxist philosophy with interest, although he criticized their one-sided historical problems.

Phenomenological problems have been developed in various areas of psychology, ethics, aesthetics, law and sociology, religion, the history of metaphysics, the philosophy of mathematics and natural science.


Philosophical hermeneutics.

hermeneutics(Greek: hermeneutike- interpretation) as a way of systematic reflection on the specifics of the problems of understanding and interpretation is one of the influential philosophical directions of philosophical analysis of the 20th century. But posing problems in modern theory hermeneutics remains incomprehensible without taking into account the previous hermeneutic tradition.

According to ancient Greek tradition, God Hermes - messenger Zeus rulers of gods and men. Hermes had to explain the message to the people Zeus provide them understanding.

In science, understanding is often interpreted as subsuming under a concept. They do this when they solve problems in mathematics, physics, and other academic disciplines. The hermeneutic believes that there is no true understanding here, but only explanation. Understanding must be truly vital, it must deal with beings, and science simply abstracts from many things.



A person is initially in the world of existence, is interested in it (in Latin, “to be among existence” means to be interested in it). However, things are closed from a person, they have their own boundaries. On the other hand, everyone has their own limits. Understanding will be achieved, and the truth will be revealed, if it is possible to achieve a fusion of the boundaries of the thing and the person. A few examples will clarify the situation for us.

Let's say I have a car. How to unlock its secret? Give him the opportunity to show himself comprehensively, in perfection. And for this they need to use it. But not in any way, otherwise it will simply become worthless.

To understand a text means to find answers to a number of questions in it, determined by the boundaries of the questioner, his education, taste (aesthetic, for example), talent, traditionalism. According to the German philosopher Gadamer who is considered the founder of modern hermeneutics, attempts to see the meaning of the text in the mind of its creator are futile (because the creator of the text himself is part of the world, moreover, we want to know the immediate given, more precisely: given to find the answer). The text does not have its own meaning outside of its interpretation, and within the framework of this interpretation, subjective arbitrariness is inappropriate, because the text itself is not arbitrary. Thus, understanding is achieved in ensuring the fusion of the horizons of the text and the person. In doing so, one must keep in mind the so-called hermeneutic circle . A person must understand what he is inside from the very beginning, a circular dependence connects the whole and its part. We can only understand a text as part of a whole, about which we have some pre-understanding before interpreting the text. Finally, it should be taken into account that understanding is historical, transient, temporary, and this means the variability of the very horizons of understanding. Each new generation interprets in its own way. For hermeneutics, the most important thing is to know the essence of the matter.

The main ideas of hermeneutics:

1. The knowledge and life of a person proceeds along the path of some texts to others, taking into account the current socio-cultural situation.

2. The language of communication is the basis for obtaining dialogue philosophical knowledge.

3. Cognition is based on knowledge.

4. The peculiarity of the understanding process is the basis for clarification. For the religious understanding of the text - the basis is faith.

5. It is important to overcome the one-sidedness of the facts of science, to criticize them, relying on many points of view and showing subjectivity.

6. Possible various options interpretations of the same text that do not even coincide with the opinion of the authors.

7. Exist. difficulty in understanding nature, because it is silent.

8. Not every fact of science can be verified empirically.

9. To understand and interpret the whole, it is necessary to know its component parts.

10. In any theory, it is important to select certain facts that give rise to this theory.

11. The variety of forms of language existence: gestures, facial expressions, etc.

Phenomenology represents one of the directions in the philosophy of the 20th century, the task of which is to describe the phenomenon (phenomenon, event, experience) based on the primary experience of the cognizing consciousness (transcendental Self). Its founder is Husserl, although he had predecessors: Franz Bertano and Karl Stumpf.

Husserl's book "Logical Research" is the starting point for the emergence of this trend, which had a huge impact on the emergence and development of phenomenological psychology, phenomenological sociology, philosophy of religion, ontology, philosophy of mathematics and natural science, metaphysics, hermeneutics, existentialism and personalism.

The core of this trend is the concept of intentionality.- a property of human consciousness directed to a specific subject, that is, a person’s interest in considering philosophical aspect specific object.

Phenomenology aims to create a universal science that would serve as a justification for all other sciences and knowledge in general, had a rigorous justification. Phenomenology seeks to describe the intentionality of the life of consciousness, the existence of the individual, as well as the fundamental foundations of human existence.

A characteristic feature of this method is the rejection of any questionable premises. This direction affirms the simultaneous inseparability and at the same time the irreducibility of consciousness, human existence, personality, psychophysical nature of man, spiritual culture and society.

Husserl put forward the slogan " Back to the things themselves!", which orients a person to the removal of functional and causal relationships between the objective world and our consciousness. That is, his call is the restoration of the connection between consciousness and objects, when the object does not turn into consciousness, but is perceived by consciousness as an object that has certain properties without studying its functions, structure, etc. He defended pure consciousness, free from dogma, imposed thought patterns.

IN 2 main methods were proposed as research methods:

  • Evidence - direct contemplation,
  • Phenomenological reduction is the liberation of consciousness from natural (naturalistic) attitudes.

Phenomenological reduction is not a naive immersion in the surrounding world, but focuses on what consciousness experiences in the world that is given to us. Then these experiences are used simply as certain concrete facts, but as ideal entities. This is then reduced to the pure consciousness of our transcendent Self.

"... The field of phenomenology is an analysis of what is revealed a priori in direct intuition, fixations of directly discernible entities and their interconnections and their descriptive cognition in a systemic union of all layers in a transcendentally pure consciousness," — Husserl, Ideas.

Using the method of phenomenological reduction, a person gradually comes to understand that being is preceded by pure ego or pure consciousness with the entities it experiences.

Phenomenology thus covers a vast field from simple contemplation of an object to philosophical reflection on the basis of its semantic cultures.

Husserl sought not only to understand the world, but also to construct, to the creation of a true world, in the center of which is the person himself. He wrote: "Philosophical knowledge creates not only special results, but also a human attitude, which immediately invades the rest of practical life ... It forms a new intimate community between people, we could say a community of purely ideal interests between people who live by philosophy, are unforgettably connected by ideas that are not only useful to everyone, but are identically mastered by everyone.

Currently, phenomenological research methods are used in psychiatry, sociology, literary criticism and aesthetics. The largest centers of phenomenology are located in Belgium and Germany. In the 90s of the 20th century, centers were established in Moscow and Prague. The International Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Education is located in the USA.

The science of the phenomena of consciousness, or phenomenology, is an independent philosophical discipline developed by Edmund Husserl, the original German philosopher, which laid the foundation for a fundamentally new approach to understanding consciousness and its role in human life. Phenomenology (Greek phainomenon - appearing and logos - teaching) is a science, or rather, according to Husserl himself, scientific philosophy, the object of which is consciousness, comprehending the existence of the human consciousness itself.

The doctrine of phenomena is a new philosophical system that seeks to describe events and actions as they are. In traditional philosophy, a phenomenon is usually understood as a phenomenon comprehended in sensory experience. Husserl, on the other hand, understands by the phenomenon the meanings of things, objects, and phenomena that arise in consciousness. In his phenomenon, subject and object merge together. The external world appears before the subject in a natural flow of phenomena, and self-consciousness appears as the being of awareness. In general, outside the phenomena of consciousness, according to Husserl, there is no subject of philosophy, since the givenness of the human world is a sum of phenomena, or phenomena, available exclusively as existing in consciousness.

E. Husserl is convinced that consciousness is always active and purposeful in relation to the subject. It is intentional in essence (lat. intentio - intention, tendency, aspiration). Intentionality is interpreted by the philosopher not as a way of being of an object, thing, phenomenon, but as a fulfillment, “assumption”, or intenting. Operating with phenomena, a person intends. In other words, he always deals not only with the outer world, but also with his inner world. Intention is a kind of attention that posits an object. Intentionality inextricably links consciousness and the object of consciousness, that is, it unites the subject and the object, since consciousness is directed at a specific object for the purpose of its semantic interpretation. This state, according to Husserl, is the innate ability of the subject, through the constant focus of his consciousness on material and spiritual objects, to give them life meaning. “The term “intentionality” does not mean anything,” explains E. Husserl himself, “except for the general property of consciousness to be the awareness of some thing.” This is the construction of an ideal order. Figuratively, one can say this: a person's consciousness is likened to a ray of an electric flashlight that illuminates objects and things in pitch darkness, making them recognizable. At the same time, the ray purposefully searches only for those things and objects that are subject to identification.

Intentionality simultaneously expresses the immanent world of human consciousness, which psychologically perceives common "ideal objects". It creates phenomena such as mental experiences, speculative attitudes that determine the meaning and purpose of objects. The task of phenomenology is to understand the true meaning of things, for which it is necessary to clear the mind of empirical content. As for the being of objects and things, it finds itself only when it is included in the consciousness of man. In contrast to the representatives of traditional epistemology with its subject-object dichotomy, E. Husserl believes that the awareness of an object and the object of consciousness itself are inseparable from each other. The primary reality in phenomenology is not "consciousness" in itself, on the one hand, and not "matter" - on the other, but a certain "life world". It is he who is revealed to man as a correlate of intentionally acting subjectivity, as a sphere of meanings and meanings constituted by transcendental subjectivity. Therefore, human consciousness appears in phenomenology as a certain area of ​​meanings and meanings, opening up the possibility for diverse interpretations and interpretations.

The transcendental philosophy of I. Kant had a great influence on the formation of the phenomenology of E. Husserl. From the latter, E. Husserl borrowed the concept of mental creativity for the purposeful "design" of ideal objects of the world. He singled out several levels in human consciousness, depending on the target orientation of consciousness, on the degree of intentionality. Thus, consciousness can be directed exclusively outward, to objects and things of the objective world. In this case, its content becomes living contemplation. However, it also focuses on itself as an internal contemplation, which is called reflection. Husserl, following Kant, calls the individual as a representative of rational humanity a transcendental subject.

Thus, Husserlian phenomenology became the initial methodological basis for the irrational philosophical system as the “internal logic” of the meaning formation of a certain spectrum of meanings of the existence of an object. In consciousness there is nothing and cannot be, except for the meanings of real or imaginary objects.

According to Husserl, the objective world is represented in the human mind only as a constituted formation. It is connected with a certain point from which the indicated constitution proceeds. However, the philosopher does not specifically raise the question of the factual and historical givenness of this starting point: it recedes into the background, and in the foreground stands system analysis material structures and determination of the ways of their world formation. Therefore, understanding in philosophy Husserl appears as an original way of being of man himself. By the way, it is not reduced to the art of interpretation and is not a kind of "method" to revive the world of things. This is not even taking into account human motives or volitional impulses and desires, but rather “taking measurements” from the thing itself as a fact of consciousness. For Husserl, the world does not exist outside and apart from or independently of consciousness, as in materialism, and not in consciousness, as in subjective idealism, but in a certain perspective of consciousness, that is, in intention. The world, according to Husserl, is outside consciousness, but it is permeated by it, it is always comprehended by it, and only in this form is it real.

The phenomenological method of cognition and explanation of the material and spiritual world is very popular today in world philosophy, as well as in natural science and especially in medicine. It is he who warns any researcher against ignoring the uniqueness and originality of the inner (spiritual) world of people. Overcoming the crisis in modern science and medicine is possible only on the basis of the phenomenological "recipes" of E. Husserl. In his work “The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology”, he rightly linked the trend of “naturalization” of man in the natural sciences and philosophy with socially dangerous manipulative attempts to treat people in much the same way as they treat objects and things.

The ideas of phenomenology were further developed in existentialism, personalism, philosophy of life, hermeneutics, etc. Husserl's teaching has often been characterized as an "existential phenomenology" because it explored in detail the "climate of modern human thinking." Man is a being whose being consists in understanding. And this is the main thesis of philosophical hermeneutics.

Psychology of deception