Phenomenology

The Emergence of Traditions and Their Contexts

Within the large sweep of phenomenological philosophy, a variety of phenomenological schools and traditions may be distinguished, such as transcendental, existential, hermeneutic, linguistic, and ethical phenomenology. Often these traditions are strongly associated with renowned phenomenological scholars.

Transcendental phenomenology may be identified with the pathbreaking work of Edmund Husserl and his interpreters. Some basic terms of transcendental phenomenology are intentionality, eidetic reduction, and constitution of meaning. For Husserl, phenomenology is the rigorous, human science of all conceivable transcendental phenomena. It describes the way that knowledge comes into being in consciousness and clarifies the assumptions upon which all human understandings are grounded.

Existential phenomenology is often associated with Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir. Some basic terms of existential phenomenology are modes of being, ontology, and lifeworld. In his last work, The Crisis of the European Sciences, Husserl had already turned phenomenological analysis from the transcendental ego and consciousness to the prereflective lifeworld of everyday experience. Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty radicalized this turn toward the existential world as we live and experience it. With Heidegger, this turn became an ontological rather than an epistemological project. Instead of asking how the being of things are constituted as intentional objects in consciousness, Heidegger asked how the being of beings shows itself as a revealing of being itself.

Hermeneutic phenomenology is linked especially with Hans-Georg Gadamer and with Paul Ricoeur. Some basic terms of hermeneutic phenomenology are interpretation, textual meaning, dialogue, preunder-standing, and tradition. Phenomenology becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretive (rather than purely descriptive as in transcendental phenomenology). But the contrast between descriptive and interpretive phenomenology is sometimes oversimplified by researchers in the professional disciplines. Heidegger argued that all description is always already interpretation. Every form of human understanding is interpretive.

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