What I consider phenomenology to be
Phenomenology is a specific attitude towards the world. The purpose of taking this attitude is twofold. First, it is meant to recover human experience on a very large scale, i.e., to disclose so-called original phenomena or (to use a Husserlian coinage) to go back to the things themselves. By means of doing so phenomenologists, secondly, critically reflect on the basic concepts and general frameworks of our usual ways of representing, conceptualizing and practically modelling human reality. In particular, they claim to gain a new grasp of commonly known philosophical issues (e.g., the mind/body-problem). It is clear from this that phenomenology’s first task is to explain what original phenomena (or things themselves) are and how it happens that we tend to lose sight of them in the course of our daily life and scientific work. It is true that, since the origins of a phenomenological movement at the beginning of the 20th century until today, there has been no agreement among phenomenologists on how to introduce the term “phenomenon.”
However, there is a common conviction among adherents of different phenomenological approaches, for instance, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. This conviction amounts to the idea that original phenomena are not immediately accessible. As long as we assume our everyday-attitude towards the world they are in a certain sense hidden. Therefore we require a specific attitude to go “back to the things themselves.” Depending on what specific idea of phenomenological philosophy we are ready to follow, the characterization of this attitude significantly differs. (1) It differs, among other things, with regard to its voluntary feasibility and its ontological commitments as well as with regard to the notion of the subject whom we ascribe the attitude in question.
From the point of view of a Husserlian-style phenomenology the most important implication of this is to realize that whenever we talk about (original) phenomena we are not straightforwardly directed at something which is given (e.g., the newspaper lying on the table which I perceive while sitting in front of my computer). Instead, while talking about phenomena we are, in an entirely non-sceptical manner, interested in how things are given, how they appear. (2) We are interested in how special modes of appearances are correlated with special modes of being directed to the things which appear. We cannot talk about phenomena without, at the same time, talking about the intentional structure of our consciousness, i.e., about the relation holding between changing appearances and changing attitudes towards appearing things. In this sense, doing phenomenology means to focus on the form of givenness (whatever it is that is presently given). By analysing the formal structure of our intentional relations to different species of objects, phenomenologists aim at making explicit the presuppositions adhering to different (scientific) representations of reality.
It is due to this peculiar type of higher-level analysis (compared with all those forms of scientific analysis which immediately refer to certain types of objects) that Husserl’s phenomenology can be rightly stamped as foundationalist, although the term “foundationalism” easily gives rise to serious misunderstandings. There is no transcendental phenomenology which is without this foundationalist bias which, in my view, simply reflects the metatheoretical approach of an intentional analysis. This analysis, consequently, requires distinguishing different spheres of objects as well as different levels of discourse with pertaining terminologies, attitudes, and experiences, which differ in accordance with the former. It is only from this “foundationalist” point of view that these distinctions present themselves as necessary in order not to confuse heterogenous projects of explanation, (3) for instance, brain physiological investigations of the so-called readiness-potential and a philosophical reflection on the idea of free will. (4)
According to the above, it is not really surprising that the peculiar idea of philosophical reflection which Husserl calls “phenomenological reduction” is meant not to reduce but, on the contrary, to release the whole range of human experience. It is by reflecting and receding from our ordinary way of experiencing things (which does not involve any interest in the formal structure of appearances) that we discover the varieties of givenness and, subsequently, are able to analyse what “human experience” means. It is well known that Husserl’s idea of an impartial observer which is said to be realized by means of phenomenological reduction is widely rejected. This clearly is a methodical ideal which, on principle, cannot be fully realized (see, for instance, Merleau-Ponty’s arguments in favour of an essential incompleteness of the phenomenological reduction). However, we have to acknowledge that it is this peculiar philosophical reflection which enables us to save the phenomena. It is due to our ability to withdraw from everyday experience that we are able to understand what experience means relating to different domains of objects. In other words, experience can only be understood by means of reflection. On the other hand, philosophical reflection represents a new type of experience which operates within the range of intentional relations, i.e., within the range of transcendental subjectivity. Reflection manifests itself as a special kind of experience. It is in this double dimension of disclosing natural experience as well as phenomenological experience that, according to transcendental phenomenology, the concepts of phenomenon, givenness and reflection inseparably belong together. (5)
Phenomenology as Practical Philosophy
Recent debates on ethical issues among phenomenologists often focus on thinkers like Ricœur and Lévinas (6) or, with a view to approximating phenomenological and poststructuralist or postmodernist approaches, on Foucault, Derrida, Agamben, and others who have a strong interest in the intellectual genesis and social mechanism of power and repression. To be sure, these are important projects. However, we still lack an overall and deep understanding of ethics as formal axiology and material value theory as it was formulated during the classical period of phenomenology (roughly speaking, between 1890 and 1950). Systematically interpreting the ethical reasoning of this period (among others: Brentano, Husserl, Scheler, Pfänder, Reinach, Hildebrand, Hartmann, and Reiner) certainly would impinge on a reconsideration and re-evaluation of later developments in the field of ethics like the revival of virtue ethics (e.g., Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse) and its critical attitude towards deontology and utilitarianism or the rise of communitarianism (e.g., Alasdaire McIntyre, Charles Taylor). What does it mean to demand “an overall and deep understanding” of classical phenomenology’s approach to ethical theory? It does not only mean to strive for a better understanding of the astonishing variety and dissent on ethics which we, for instance, find among Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Much successful work has been done in order to investigate the moral philosophy of single phenomenological authors. (7) Much less has been done to furnish us with encompassing insights into a history of ethics (or specific ethical issues) as part of a history of phenomenology, namely in terms of a history of problems. This systematic work should be done by addressing contemporary concerns in ethical theory, e.g., internalism/externalism. The fruitfulness of a phenomenological philosophy has to be proved by showing how such issues can be reformulated and newly appraised in the wake of a phenomenological analysis which lays bare the tacit implications of commonly accepted approaches to ethical issues and ethical reasoning. (8)
According to Husserl, a self-reflective and self-critical bias called phenomenology of phenomenology, is part of a phenomenological philosophy. This being the case, it is obvious that the most fundamental challenge of a phenomenologist’s occupation with practical philosophy lies in finding out whether transcendental-phenomenological reflection demands some kind of practical commitment which, in a first step, need not be grasped in terms of a (new) ethical theory. (9) In a more specific sense, this matter has to be considered with regard to a central thesis of Scheler’s as well as Hartmann’s (and others) value ethics which undermines a common understanding of how descriptive and normative aspects interfere with a view to our (scientific) idea of reality. We may designate this thesis the primacy of value-givenness as against the givenness of facts. Taking this thesis (which actually has to be carefully scrutinized) for granted, we should ask whether it has any consequences with regard to our idea of phenomenology as a theoretical philosophy. Is the distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy not as basic and as troublesome and questionable as, for instance, the distinction between subjective and objective whose refinement undoubtedly is of prime interest for any phenomenological philosophy?
What it means to give prominence to either subjective or objective moments is one of the main topics, if we intend to systematically compare different accounts of phenomenological ethics. It is conspicuous that those ethical theories of classical phenomenology which centre around the notions of person and value mostly refuse Husserl’s transcendental idealism. They are grounded in a more or less uncompromising and more or less specified ontological approach. In a rigid sense this is true of Nicolai Hartmann, whose philosophy as a whole is not of an outright phenomenological stamp, although his ethics is deeply rooted in a phenomenological attitude. Max Scheler received Husserl’s Logical Investigations, especially his conception of material-a priori insight, with enthusiasm, and never ceased to admire this early breakthrough of phenomenology. He did not sympathize with Husserl’s later idea of transcendental subjectivity. Nevertheless, his ethical work, as far as the juxtaposition of subjective and objective moments is concerned, tries to balance these moments by proceeding from Husserl’s thesis of an a priori correlation between the structure of consciousness and the structure of objects. This enables Scheler to avoid a rigidly objectivistic account of values which had to be spelled out in ontological terms, on the one hand, and to include considerations concerning the historical and cultural relativity of values without thereby getting stuck in subjectivism and relativism, on the other hand. Wherever subjectivistic and objectivistic tendencies clash with one another, phenomenologists will agree that the matter has to be settled by scrutinizing the extent to which these different approaches are able to open up the field of moral experience, to understand our common moral practice and, what is more, to help us improve our moral sensibility. Ethics, first of all, is a matter of perception, not a matter of judgement or principles by means of which rules of behaving or judging could be justified in a generally valid manner. Correspondingly, it is primarily from the point of view of moral experience that a phenomenological ethics gains its driving question: what is the phenomenal basis of ethical reasoning? Thereto, a phenomenological ethics goes beyond the widely accepted starting question of modern normative ethics, namely: what ought I to do (in order to realise moral goodness)? Taking this to be the most basic and most profound ethical question amounts to severely narrowing the scope and richness of our moral experience. In terms of saving the moral phenomena which actually are given, the more comprehensive question is: what kind of person do I want to become? Or: what kind of person am I?
It is in the light of basic conceptual distinctions like theory and practice, theory and experience, phenomenological experience, everyday experience, and scientific experience, and with reference to contemporary scientific as well as alternative philosophical (e.g., analytic) approaches, that a phenomenological ethics should discuss its main topics. Among these are: emotion and cognition, autonomy and authenticity, causes and motives (including so-called unconscious motives), the fact/value-dichotomy, personal being and personality and freedom of will. Methodically viewed, doing this aims at reconsidering both our common views on ethical issues and our general idea of phenomenology from the point of view of a phenomenological ethics.
Notes
(1) See Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Praxis der Subjektivität. Zum Verhältnis von Transzendentalphänomenologie und Hermeneutik” in Carr, D./Lotz, C., (eds.), Subjektivität — Verantwortung — Wahrheit, Neue Aspekte der Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls (Frankfurt/New York: Lang, 2001): 37-56; and Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Transzendentale oder hermeneutische Phänomenologie der Lebenswelt? Über Chancen und Gefahren einer reflexiven Analyse” in Vetter, H. (ed.), Lebenswelten, Ludwig Landgrebe — Eugen Fink — Jan Patocka, Wiener Tagungen zur Phänomenologie 2002 (Frankfurt a.M. et al.: Peter Lang, 2003): 115-137.
(2) Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Die Entdeckung des Erscheinens. Was phänomenologische und skeptische Epoché unterscheidet” in Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie Heft 27, 1 (2001):19-40.
(3) Thereto, we are drawn to a remarkable methodological asymmetry which bears on debates on naturalism and anti-naturalism (Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “What is Wrong with Naturalizing Epistemology? A Phenomenologist’s Reply” in Feist, R. (ed.), Husserl and the Sciences. Selected Perspectives (Ottawa: Ottawa University Press, 2004): 41-68.
(4) Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Do Cognitive Scientists Succeed in Naturalizing Free Will?” in Kanzian, C./Quitterer, J./Runggaldier, E. (eds.), Persons. An Interdisciplinary Approach (Wien: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 2003): 222-231.
(5) Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Exploding the Myth of the Given. On Phenomenology’s Basic Discord with Empiricism” in Marek, Johann C./Reicher, Maria E. (eds.), Erfahrung und Analyse, Beiträge des 27, Internationalen Wittgenstein-Symposions (Wien: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 2004): 309-311.
(6) E.g., Peperzak, A.T. (ed.), Ethics as First Philosophy. The Significance of Emmanuel Levinas for Philosophy, Literature and Religion (New York/London: 1995); Waldenfels, B./Därmann, I. (eds.), Der Anspruch des Anderen. Perspektiven phänomenologischer Ethik (München: Wilhelm Fink, 1998).
(7) Pars pro toto Hart, J. G./Embree, L. (eds.), Phenomenology of Values and Valuing (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997); Drummond, J., J./Embree, L., (eds.), Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy. A Handbook (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002).
(8) Rinofner-Kreidl, S., “Phenomenological Contextualism and its Impact on ethical Internalism/Externalism” (paper presented at the Center for Subjectivity Research, Copenhagen, May 2005, unpublished manuscript).
(9) See, e.g., Sepp, H.-R., Praxis und Theoria. Husserls transzendentalphänomenologische Rekonstruktion des Lebens (Freiburg/München: Alber, 1997).