The Subject, Reduction, And Uses Of Phenomenology

The chapter argues that transcendental phenomenology is essential for fully understanding experience, and that phenomenology is needed to account for key aspects of that understanding. It explains how subjectivity arises from the expressive unity of phenomenality, which justifies the first-person perspective used across interdisciplinary phenomenology. Using this account, it clarifies the reduction, epoché, intentionality, and the principle of principles as methodological tools for examining how phenomena relate to each other and to transcendental processes. Finally, it shows how transcendental phenomenology connects to applied phenomenology through generating insights, establishing a Stiftung, and enabling a distinct way of sensing the world.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The task of this chapter is to use expressivity to clarify the relationship between transcendental phenomenology and phenomenology more broadly. It argues that the transcendental must be accounted for in any elaboration of experience, and that phenomenology is necessary to account for at least some elements of that elaboration. The chapter begins by explaining how subjectivity is generated out of the expressive unity of phenomenality. This generation entails that subjectivity offers reliable access to all the phenomena generated in phenomenality, thereby justifying the first-person perspective that is a hallmark of phenomenology in its broadest inter-disciplinary uses. It then draws on that account of the expressive generation of subjectivity to offer clarifications of the reduction, the epoché, intentionality, and the principle of principles as key methodological elements that enable us to clarify how phenomena are entangled with other phenomena and with transcendental processes. The chapter ends by clarifying how transcendental phenomenology relates to more applied uses of phenomenology through the generation of insights, the generation of a Stiftung, and by providing access to a distinct mode of sensing the world.