HUSSERL, HEIDEGGER AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

Abstract

This paper is on Husserl’s phenomenological method; it is an attempt to show how Husserl in pursuit for a philosophy without presuppositions, established phenomenology to serve as a rigorous science of the world. Husserl in developing phenomenology insists that its procedure has to deal only with description of its objects rather than explanations. Phenomenology only begins after the phenomenologist has carried out transcendental phenomenological reductions, starting first with eidetic reduction through which all existential and natural attitudes are brack-eted and put out of action to yield only essences before consciousness. This is followed by phen- omenological reduction proper, which involves a complex of reductive phases Husserl, refers to as ‘epoche’ – which involves bracketing of all historical and existential judgments regarding what is ‘given’ and even the experiencer himself. What is left after the reduction is the transcendental ego with its transcendental life. It is then possible for consciousness to begin an entirely new task of interpreting the world at this level, as a coherent system constituted by itself alone. Husserl’s Phenomenological method is contrasted with Heidegger’s phenomenological method. Heidegger strongly rejected Husserl’s bracketing of the actual world and his transcendental ego.