Phenomenological Reductionism. an Explanation and a Critique

8/16/2019 Phenomenological Reductionism. an Explanation and a Critique

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Phenomenological ReductionismAn Explanation and a Critique

This paper tries to convey to readersnot already immersed in the tradition,

some of the types of phenomena ofconcern to phenomenologists as wellas some of their approaches andtechniques. Hopefully, the descriptionsthat follow will help general readersgain access to phenomenologicalreadings by making a somewhat exoticlanguage more amenable tointerpretation. This approach hascertain consequences which must be

stated. First, phenomenology has nocommon perspective and it is notunreasonable to claim that there ar e ‘various’ phenomenologies.1 Therefore, such a perspective as will

be displayed stands as an approximateconstruct for illustrative purposes only.Furthermore, my own style of writingis so assertive in character that a readerwill almost inevitably start assessingthe truth of propositions, the validity of

critiques, the political consequences ofideological positions, and so on. Thisis trouble. For one construes

phenomenology as an epistemologicaltheory only at the risk of gravemisunderstanding. It is more a generalapproach to understanding and certainways of looking at things. Thus, as onereads a sentence that seems like anassertion, it is best to avoid askingoneself immediately, ‘Is this valid?’ It

would be better to inquire how phenomenologists evaluate their ownclaims, and try to answer, ‘What doesvalidity consist of?’ from theirviewpoint. More generally,

phenomenological writings discuss perceptions and insights not easilydescribable in ordinary language.Therefore, I ask you to query the

1

However, this paper explores the phenomenology, and the phenomenologicalreduction, as initiated by Edmund Husserl.

forthcoming discussion predominantlywith the question: ‘What could he be

talking about?’

Let us start with a familiar phenomenological prescription: ‘allexistents must be transformed into, andtreated only as, phenomena.’Statements like this are often coupledwith refusals to use anything likecauses, facts or objective reality, inorder to explain subjective experience.

As a result, many readers assume that phenomenologists maintain aCartesian-like doubt of all externalreality, a position long sincediscredited. However, this is not thenature of the scepticism whichstatements like the above allude to.The existence of the objective, realworld is not for a moment denied, onlyconstrued as problematic.

The Phenomenological Epoché

To explain how the reality ofsomething can be both real and

problematic let’s distinguish twoaspects of the objects of ourexperience. Objects are presented tous, so that it is clear that ‘they’ existand that they ‘exist’. We distinguishthe meanings (content) of our

experience from their mode of presentation. A friend, for example, is presented to us as a real, object thatexists, in our normal eyes-open, wideawake, state. Alternately, we aredaydreaming with eyes closed and seethe same person in our proverbial‘mind’s eye’. Here, the person is

presented as a mental image. Thosewho dream ‘lucidly’ and can know andremember a friend as a dream-object,

while they are actually experiencingthe dream. Similarly, some

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schizophrenics and some of those withneurological disorders actually realisethat something they see is a hallucination, while they are seeing it.2 Under all these modes of presentation,

the meaning or content of this person,with all its implications, andconsequences, remains the same.

It is perfectly clear that most objects ofour experience in daily life are

presented as concrete, existing things.This presentation is accomplished withsuch irresistible force, that the denialof this reality is academic. They arenot illusions—not perceptual reports

from the senses. They exist.Phenomenologists make this existence

problematic by ‘bracketing’ it.3

Existence becomes a mode of presentation. The reality of this object becomes—not a fact that we believe(or doubt)—but an aspect ofexperience, which occurs. As modes of

presentation, reality and existence become features of experience, andtherefore phenomena to be observedand described.

By an ‘existent’, then, is meant any physical, social, abstract, emotionalobject—which has content, meaning,characteristics, features—whichcoheres in our experience as anenduring object, and which somehow

presents itself to us as existing.4

2 For a discussion of some of these issues seeJeff Coulter (1998), ‘Can We See Thingsthat Are Not There?’ Ethnographic Studies,3: 7 – 16.

3 This is more commonly called the phenomenological epoché, where epoché isthe Greek word for ‘bracketing’. For over acentury there has been a lively debateconcerning what the phenomenologicalepoché is, if there is one or many, andwhich of them accomplishes what.

4 That is, it presents as a real something.

`Real' is not always identical to physical. Itcan be a real emotion, real idea, realscientific fact, and so on.

The phenomenological epoché is oneway to render the existence of anobject, problematic. It is by no meansthe only way. And phenomenology is

but one among many disciplines thathave found it necessary, through thecenturies, to inquire if, and in whatsense, various objects ‘exist’.

Plato presented us with abstractobjects, such as the number 3, thecould never be observed either in theoutside world or in anyone’s brain.Mathematicians needed to assert theexistence of (mathematical) objects

they could never construct or exhibit.5 Physicists discovered particles thatwere so ‘small’ they had no masswhatsoever, could never be seendirectly, and could never definitely belocated in one particular place.

Marx indicted conceptual ‘reifications’through which our socially createdabstractions become more real andimportant to us than actual human

beings. He would be amused but notsurprised to find the US legal systemseriously considering denying thecopyright for a recent book, to itshuman publisher. Why? Because the

plaintiffs claimed ‘God’ was the truelegal author.6

5 The axiom of choice is one famous

statement that permitted mathematicians torefer to collections of objects that couldnever be constructed. Some of thesecollections turned out to be paradoxical andcontradictory. For a discussion of

problematic statements of the form, ‘Thereexists at least one X, with property Y’ seeSchwartz, Howard, Mental Illness and theStudy of Subjective Experience: Someways that each can elucidate the other.Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA, 1971, Chapter 1.

6 Actual lawsuit brought by the EndeavorAcademy in 1996 challenging the

copyright held by Kenneth Wapnick andhis FACIM (Foundation for a Course inMiracles) for the book, A Course in

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Phenomenology is different than theseother approaches in several ways. Itdoes not treat, ‘What makes ‘real’things real?’ as the subject of theory or

philosophical debate. It claims to learnabout this empirically, by directobservation and study of experience.The objects studied in this way are anyand all real objects, no matter howmundane, complex, or unproblematic.

Finally, the empiricism of phenomenology is not the study ofother people’s reality. it is a collectionof ‘first person’ methods for doing self

observation.7 Inquiry begins with whatone might initially consider ‘my’everyday reality.8

When I deal with MY OWN everyday,taken for granted, world, this program

become extremely difficult. When afriend of mine walks in the room, I amnot be spontaneously puzzled or eveninterested in the experiential

phenomenon, ‘my friend walked in theroom—really.’ These perceptions

present themselves as vividly,unremarkable realities.

Thus, I must focus on the very things Iview as regular, stable, well

Miracles. After much litigation, this suit isstill unsettled.

7 Actually ‘self’ observation is a misnomer,

since whether an experience is ‘mine’,where I am an isolated individual, is itselfopen to investigation. For a good and raremanual on how to do self observation,construed as observing one's individualexperience, see Noelie Rodriquez and AlanLincoln Ryave ‘Systematic SelfObservation’ Thousand Oaks: SagePublishers, forthcoming.

8 One begins Husserl’s phenomenological journey thinking of oneself as an oneindividual among, and separate from manyothers, ‘trapped in one’s own skin.’ As

inquiry proceeds, experience andknowledge of who and what ‘I’ consists of,

begins to expand and change.

understood features of the world inorder to go about my daily affairs withany kind of proficiency. It is axiomaticthat, what one pays attention to whilelearning, becomes taken for granted

when one becomes proficient.9

Yet, itis precisely these kinds of phenomenathat, through some shift of experience,must become puzzling, interesting, ormiraculous in order to ‘make strange, afamiliar world.’ This is what the

phenomenological epoché or the‘bracketing’ of existents attempts todo. I must re-experience what I takefor granted, in such a way that, ‘Howdoes consciousness do it?’ becomes as

natural a question to me as how themagician takes the rabbit out of thehat. And I must do this, while retainingmy hard won social competency.

If I pull this off, it will reveal the phenomenological ‘world of everydaylife,’ the ‘world as lived in,’ the‘Lebenswelt’—what we learn to regardas real, rely on as obvious, disregard astrivial—specifically so that we may goabout our business doing the everydaythings we do in a recognisablecompetent manner to our fellows andto ourselves.

The response to the previous points is probably that this is news fromnowhere. Researchers have pointed tohuman blindness due to fluency and

practicality on many occasions. In this

regard, Max Weber points out one ofthe advantages of research and scienceas a profession: Society providesfunding, tools, and a block of timeevery day—where people are granted‘time out’ from the practicalities ofeveryday life. They can study as

problems and regard as important,many of the things most of us glossover or take for granted in the midst of

9

See for example, Polanyi, Michael. TheTacit Dimension. Garden City, New York:Doubleday Anchor, 1966.

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daily living. Why then do not theconcerns of a research psychologist,cognitive scientist or sociologist leadhim10 to uncover just the types ofthings which were pointed out as going

unnoticed in daily life? The entire fieldof psychophysics is devoted tostudying how human experiencecreates some of the most basic visual,auditory, and attention-realities. Therehave been innumerable studies on howhuman cognition, language, andmotivation, creates and reconstructswhat we know of as realities.

Phenomenology’s refusal to except the

results of other sciences could notcome from the considerations justdiscussed. For much of social scienceis specifically engaged in replacing thevery gaps in common sense knowledgethat were alluded to, with the results ofcareful research.

The answer to this objection involvesthe very core of the phenomenologicalorientation but, unfortunately, isdifficult to make verbally clear. Wecan start with an inaccurate, but

perhaps useful summary:Phenomenology is a ‘non-ordinary’way (or ways) of looking at things.From this vantage point, ‘ordinary’

problems and puzzles ‘in’ the everydayworld are those that most of us learn torecognise as such, while doing, and inorder to do, our regular activities.

These activities include washing thecar, preparing dinner, and all of theinquiring professions, construed asdaily activities. They includesociology, physics, political science,

philosophy—as they are practised hour by hour by ordinary human beings.The traditions, cultural milieus, and

10 Forgive the male pronouns and similarartefacts of sexism in this paper. I am

presently unaware of solutions to this problem in English that do not createawkward prose.

communities that are part of these professions provide a context in whichcertain matters are natural questions,

be they:

Is IQ related to income? Is light a particle or a wave or

Why didn’t they grant me tenure, ifmy research was so highlyreviewed?

We could regard as phenomenological problems, those matters phenomenologists seek to treat asmysteries, but which virtuallyeveryone else takes as clear and not inneed of explanation. The world atlarge, including the scientific

professions, would regard turning thesematters into problems as a mere

philosophical or intellectual exercise.By their very rootedness in sociallycontexted, daily life, they could hardlydo otherwise. Yet, through certainapproaches and techniques,

phenomenologists create for

themselves, serious puzzles and problems, from what would otherwiseseem arcane matters. Some of these

problems may be unfamiliar, othersmay be familiar questions approachedin an unusual way.

Further, phenomenological solutions to problems would be equally differentthan what others regard as solutions. Afeature of most problems recognised as

such is that while, initially, we may nothave a solution, we do know what asolution to a given kind of problemshould look like; be it a causalstatement, an equation, or a ‘yes’ toour dinner invitation. This isintertwined with our originalunderstanding of the nature of the

problem. But phenomenologistswouldn’t be interested in such thingsas correlation coefficients,

mathematical equations, or expositorytheories—in fact, any explanatory

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device that solves a puzzle byreference to objective, existing, objectsor events. Such solutions wouldn’t bewrong to phenomenologists butirrelevant. To them, objective

conditions, as existents, are a core phenomenological phenomenon. Tocite such conditions as part of anexplanation would be explaining one

puzzle by another.

We have disavowed objectiveconditions, the problems of otherdisciplines, and the solutions of thesedisciplines as resources for

phenomenology. These rejections have

a familiar ring. Yet another disciplinethinks it has found a way to escape thehuman condition, and see things better,more clearly or correctly from somesuperior vantage point ‘outside’ theworld that people live in. They rejectobjective reality as untrustworthy, andsubstitute something called‘experience’ as a superior form of datafrom which to draw conclusions. It can

be observed—learned about—it canhave structure. But it is intrinsicallyimmune to various kinds of doubt.How, indeed, could I doubt that I‘experience’ my friend walk throughthe door—whether awake, dreaming,or whatever? Therefore, by puttingaside objective reality as producedwithin the human world, I

paradoxically can achieve a kind of better, more certain, super-

objectivity.

11

Seen from without, however, suchclaims make phenomenology seem like

just another alternate ‘system.’ Theyare dissatisfied with culturallysanctioned meanings and proceduresused in other knowledge disciplines.So phenomenologists create newGestalts and cultural settings to define

11 Although, of course I would never use sucha term, as a phenomenologist.

alternative activities. All the talk about‘in the world’ versus ‘of the world’ etc.simply reflects the assumed superiorityof the new activities over the old. ‘Inthe world’ is what they do; ‘of the

world’ is what we do.

This view, however, ascribes to phenomenologists a bit less than theydeserve. Even though Husserl, indeed,makes statements such as,

I reach the ultimate experiential andcognitive perspective thinkable. In it, I

become the disinterested spectator of mynatural and worldly ego and its life.12

It should be no surprise to learn that heand his colleagues recognise theyremain human beings whose

perceptions and descriptions as quitedefinitely phenomena ‘in’ the everydayworld and thus inexorably part and

parcel of the phenomena they wish tounderstand.13

This admission may be laudable.

However, it makes the characterisationof phenomenology as just anothersystem even more plausible. For itdoes not appear that phenomenologistshave effectively resolved the problemsraised by this admission, problemsresolved by positivists by simplyignoring them. Indeed the onlyattraction phenomenology has in thisregard, is its willingness to admit, upfront, that its practitioners have noexalted, value free position from whichto observe and understand the world.

For example, what is it that will bedescribed by them? Any ‘consciousexperience’ which is designated as the

12 Husserl, Edmond. The Paris Lectures. TheHague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1970, p. 15.

13 As we will later see, this is a controversial

claim that I (the author) make on behalf of phenomenologists, which may well becontested by others.

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subject matter, they admit, could only be—what comes to be noticed, as wellas what comes to be disregarded,while, and in order to, perform theroutine, daily activity, phenomenology.

What features of their descriptions andexplanations makes them better ordifferent than those in otherdisciplines? What saves theirknowledge from being just another, inthe world, socially created reality, thatmerely different from the realities ofcompeting schools of thought?

More pointedly, phenomenologistshighlight the perspectival, relative

nature of’ conventional’ explanationsin many ways. They point to the factthat the issues considered by scientists,

philosophers, etc., are those whichcome to be recognised while, and inorder to perform routine activities, indaily life. In particular, they indict the‘existents’ whose objective, stable, realcharacter is assumed as a matter ofcourse; existents, in terms of which,other phenomena are analysed to maketheir nature clear and understandable.To them, ‘existents’ are mere

phenomena occurring in theexperienced world in a manner as

problematic as any other. As analternative they propose to describesomething called immediate lived‘experience’. True, this means they

proceed from a different starting point, but there are innumerable different

starting points. They admit that theirdescriptions must also be routineactivities in the world and thusexperiential phenomena. So how couldtheir descriptive activity be doinganything but explaining one mystery

by another?

Indeed, if we accept Louch,14 we can be even more specific. Assume that

14

Louch, Alfred R. Explanation and HumanAction . Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress. 1966.

matters like ‘that which is a problem’or ‘that which needs describing’ isessentially an contextually-recognised

phenomenon. Only by reference tosomething(s) non-problematic or not in

need of description can what does needdescribing, be recognised. Therefore,

phenomenology must containunanalysed, taken for granted ‘givens’if they are to do any describing at all.In an eerie analogy to Descartes’ ‘Ithink therefore I am’ they arrive atimmediate, lived experience as thegivens whose presence (existence?) isnot possible to doubt.15 As theirstarting point, they can not tell us

much about it, except that they trust it.They claim it is impossible to deny the

presence and content of livedexperience, although its nature is opento analysis. Thus, anything like‘experiences’ in terms of which theyaccount for phenomena that ‘exist’serves the same ends as the ‘existents’of other inquiring sciences. Theirgivens are open to the same objectionsthat they level against otherdisciplines. As the sciences have adifferent starting point than commonsense reasoning; as Descartes had adifferent starting point than thesciences; why is not ‘lived experience’

just another starting point like anyother? What makes it better ordifferent just because they find it morecogent?

Like all starting points ‘you have to seeit to appreciate it’, i.e., exactly what ‘what it is and what it ain’t’ remainsunexplicated. In addition, bydescribing/explaining more complex

phenomena in terms of more primitive

15 Indeed, Husserl's Cartesian Meditations ischaracterised as an attempt to redoDescartes’ task of getting back toundeniable basics, but getting it right this

time. Refer to, Husserl, Edmund .Cartesian Meditations. The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff, 1970.

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givens, they employ the classical formof constructive analysis16 exemplified

by mathematics: One ‘understands’something by characterising it is ameld or combination of more primitive

elements, combined by certainoperations.

Furthermore, the previous admissionmakes it impossible for

phenomenologists to accomplish theirstated aim in still another way. Theywish to describe all and only featuresof conscious experience. Yet, we haveseen that what they treat as consciousexperience and how they describe it,

must be conditioned and influenced by20 or more years of cultural learning,and life—before they undertook

phenomenology as adults. It iseffected, as well, by their colleagues,their profession, the socio-culturalcontexts within which they work.These accomplishments depend fortheir success on the very same

processes as other routineaccomplishments, like doingsuccessful sociology, philosophy, or

physics.

Thus, they describe their experience ofa (proverbial) cube in terms of thecube’s meaningful ‘essence’. As asocial group, does a new budding

phenomenologist not, in fact, simplylearn and pick up the concept ofessence from reading Husserl, and/or

from his or her colleagues? If so, is thisnot a case of a person using an ideaand/or phenomenon as a resource,when it should point to just anothercluster ofexperiences/memories/assumptions(s)he needs to explain? Why then,should ‘essences’ or ‘noemas’ be

16 The Greek meaning of analysis is (tounderstand by) breaking into parts. Harold

Garfinkel refers to this form ofunderstanding more generally as‘constructive analysis.’

confidently announced as undeniablefeatures of conscious experience? Dowe not have the famous problem of‘experimenter-effects’ in takingessences as independently discovered

features of objects, verified by each phenomenologist.17 Why is it not more plausible to consider essence, as aconcept they take to their analysis andimpose on what they experience—aconcept socially created, modified-in-use, and shared by a group ofspecialists?

Recall the dictum, ‘describe only andall, aspects of conscious experience’.

We have already dealt with the fallacyof the ‘only’ part, noticing how‘essences’ and other socially sharedideas crept into the phenomena inorder to do any describing at all. Nowfor the ‘all.’ It is clear that consciousexperiences must be described justfrom their own contextual perspective;this has been admitted. But consciousexperience varies with perspective.The aspects of experience appreciated

by the physicist, the biologist, thereligious mystic, or a one year old,congenitally deaf child are clearly notgoing to be in evidence when a

phenomenologist describes something.Thus, all aspects of experience will not

be described by this discipline anymore than they were by any of theothers.

Finally, the way phenomenologistsdefine their work seems to even losesome of the possibilities forverification, repeatability andabstraction found in conventionalscience. Presumably, experience is a

17 See Rosenthal, Robert, Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research. New York:Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966. WhileRosenthal described investigator

contamination, when observing others,there is no reason why his findings wouldnot apply equally well to self observation.

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phenomenon essentially related to thecontexts, activities, and settings withinwhich it is embedded. But the settingsand contexts comprising my past and

present are, on any given occasion,

regularly different from my fellow’s ina multitude of ways. Thus, it is notunreasonable to assume that a givenexperienced object as a constituent ofmy present contextual world is adifferent object for me than it is for mycolleagues. Therefore, as a

phenomenologist, aren’t I condemnedto describing only my own experientialobjects, no matter how manytranscendental tricks it employ to do

so? How could I obey phenomenological rules and have achance of dealing with any similaritiesor differences between theirexperiential-objects and my own?

Their experienced reality is usually not perceptually available to me, in twosenses. It is generally different than myown, because of context; and I can notdirectly experience many of theirobjects. For example, they can neitherhear the voice in my head saying‘phenomenology’ as I read, nor can Ihear theirs. I am thus required to notutilise ‘their’ experience (since it isnon-direct experience) for the samereasons I couldn’t talk about invisibleatoms, not in evidence, as comprisingan experienced object. It would seemthat only in cases of empathy or similar

situations—where my experientialworld actually coincides with that ofone or more of my peers—would mydescriptions be capable of any kind ofgenerality. Yet, even here, it would beimpossible to know on whichoccasions this generality is indeedobtained. To know this would requirean independent way of discovering thiscoincidence of realities. But without anotion of a shared objective world,

such a method is not available. Itwould require just what we don’t have:

direct experiential access to the worldof others.

In sum, how am I to collaborate andshare my findings with others, while

retaining any semblance of validity?

After the previous discussion, it mayseem that regarding phenomenology as

just another alternate ‘system’ iseminently justified. However, I’ll try tomake a few magic passes and cause allof the foregoing difficulties to vanish

permitting me to continue on thecourse already set.

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Phenomenological Reductionism. an Explanation and a Critique