The Phenomenological Reduction and the Transformation of Phenomenology

Abstract

Husserl saw himself as a constant beginner in phenomenology. Indeed, his work can be seen as a repeated set of “introductions” to phenomenology. The most radical of these transformations occurs in the first volume of his Ideas with its presentation of phenomenology as “transcendental idealism,” a development that caused many of his early advocates to leave him. Enamored as they were by the Logical Investigations and its refutations of skepticism and relativism, they could not fathom why he abandoned its realistic stance—i.e., its affirmation of the physical reality of the spatial-temporal world and of ourselves as part of it. In this chapter, we describe the motivations that led Husserl to abandon this stance. We then examine the phenomenological reduction and its transformation of our sense of consciousness. We also take up the question of the constitution of the ego as a “pole” or center of consciousness. The chapter concludes by considering some of the ontological implications of Husserl’s idealism.