Author: Edmund Husserl
_Edmund Husserl_
Reading time: 15 minutes
Synopsis
The Idea of Phenomenology (1907) is Husserl’s book that explains the method of phenomenology. It is mainly about how we can understand the world. Husserl looks closely at what we really experience, such as sights, feelings, and thoughts. We will explain Husserl’s main ideas of phenomenology in a simple and practical way.
What’s inside for you: Learn how the world takes shape in our mind
In everyday life, we usually don’t think much about how we gain knowledge. We see a tree and believe it is really there. We remember yesterday and think that this memory is correct. We just assume that our thoughts are connected to the things outside us. But how does this connection actually work?
Edmund Husserl studied exactly this. In 1907, in five lectures, he explained the method of phenomenology. Instead of just guessing about the world, Husserl wanted to understand how we get an idea of the world in the first place. His idea was: We can only understand how our mind and the world are connected if we look closely at our experiences.
We will explain the main ideas of Husserl’s phenomenology and show you how complex our mind is.
Blink 1 – When we think about how we know things, we run into problems.
In daily life, we rarely think about how we actually know things. We see a tree and are sure: “There it is.” We remember a conversation from yesterday and believe it really happened. But as soon as we start thinking about knowing itself, it becomes complicated.
How can a thought in my head match something that is not in my head at all, but outside of me? This might sound like a strange question at first. But let’s look at it more closely.
Imagine you are thinking about the Eiffel Tower. It stands in Paris – big, heavy, made of iron. You yourself might be sitting on the sofa or on the bus. Hundreds of kilometers lie between you and the real tower. Yet, you immediately have a picture in your mind: its shape, the metal structure, maybe even the color of the metal.
But there is no real tower in your mind. If someone looked inside your head, they would only find brain matter, not a tower. This is quite mysterious. How can our mind create something that is not really inside us?
It gets even more confusing when we think about logic. Evolutionary biology tells us: Our thinking developed so that we could survive. It did not necessarily develop to think about abstract truth. So, maybe our mind is just a practical tool that helps us avoid danger or find food. But can we trust a tool that is only made for usefulness and not for truth?
Here, it becomes a puzzle. To even say that our logic might not be trustworthy, we have to use logic itself. We think logically when we give reasons, express doubts, or avoid contradictions. We could not even think this thought otherwise. So, we use the same rules that we want to question – and this creates a circle.
So, is there no reliability in our thinking at all?
Blink 2 – The start of all knowledge is inside ourselves.
How can you study knowledge if you have to use knowledge to do it? This sounds like a problem with no solution. But not all knowledge is equally uncertain. Some things are absolutely clear and certain.
Husserl refers to Descartes. Descartes had a very important idea here. Even if I doubt everything, I cannot doubt that I am doubting right now. If you are reading these words, you cannot doubt that you are reading, even if later you find out the text was just a dream.
For Descartes, this was a solid starting point to prove everything else: his famous saying, “I think, therefore I am.” From this, he wanted to show that there is a world outside us and that it truly exists.
But Husserl takes a different path. He says: Before we talk about the world outside, we must focus on our own mind. For this, he brings in what he calls “phenomenological reduction.” This is a method where we put aside all ideas about the world. We don’t ask if something is really there. Instead, we only ask how something appears in our mind.
In this way, our immediate experience becomes a strong base for real philosophy. It is free from hidden ideas and quick conclusions that often lead us into problems.
Blink 3 – Our experience holds more than what we directly see.
Now we will talk about two very important words for Husserl: immanent and transcendent. “Immanent” means that we only focus on our mind and leave out everything else around us. So, for example, thoughts, feelings, or memories are immanent.
Now you might think: “Aha!” Then “transcendent” simply means what is “outside” of us, like the world around us. But for Husserl, this way of dividing things is too simple. He is not talking about differences in location. Let’s look at an example.
When you see a cup, a very clear picture appears in your mind: the cup, just as it is in front of you. This experience of seeing is immanent. But there is even more to this experience.
You still see the cup as a complete object, even if you are only looking at one side right now. You know it has a handle, even though you don’t see it at this moment.
This “whole cup” is not immanent, because you don’t see it completely. But it is transcendent. This means your mind puts it together for you. So, “transcendent” refers to what goes beyond the direct experience of seeing. The whole cup is more than just the one side of the cup you are looking at right now.
Husserl’s idea is: We should not separate “inside” and “outside.” Instead, we should separate what we directly know from the way our mind adds to that knowledge.
This is important for the “Wesenschau” (looking at the essence), which Husserl sees as a basic tool in philosophy.
Blink 4 – We don’t just experience single things, but also understand what they mean without thinking.
The idea of “Wesenschau” (looking at the essence) means this: In our mind, we can not only notice single things. We can also understand what something basically is.
For example: You can see many red things: a tomato, an apple, a cloth. But at the same time, you also understand what “red” really means. You recognize the general quality that all these things have in common. This is the essence of red.
Let’s use this idea for how we gain knowledge. When you notice something – a sound, a picture, or a smell – you can also think about what “noticing” itself means. What happens when we notice something? What makes something a “perception”?
This is exactly what Husserl is interested in: not just single experiences, but the structures that are common to all experiences. In philosophy, the “Wesenschau” is therefore directly seeing these general structures of our mind.
And here’s something amazing: For “Wesenschau,” you don’t need to actually see or hear something real. You can also grasp the basic nature of a thing or an experience just by imagining it. Let’s go back to the Eiffel Tower. If you imagine it, you can also understand what a tower is in its true form. You don’t need to stand in front of a real tower for this. The question of whether something truly exists does not matter here.
That’s why Husserl does not need to worry about the world outside us when he thinks about how we gain knowledge. It is not key for his philosophy. What is important to him is that we can see the general idea inside a specific thing. This is what makes real philosophical understanding possible.
Blink 5 – When we notice things, we often use ways of thinking that go beyond just seeing.
In “Wesenschau,” we saw that we don’t just notice single things. We can also understand what they are in general. But our thinking goes even further.
Imagine you see an apple lying on a table. What is happening here? Actually, you only see an apple and a table. They are two separate things. The connection on – that the apple is on the table – is not something you can see. It would only be visible if a sticker with the word on were stuck to the apple. But this is not the case.
On here shows a logical connection between the apple and the table: The apple is in a certain position, which is on the table. It’s similar with words like “not,” “and,” “or,” “the same,” or “different.” All these words describe logical connections, not things you see or hear.
And here’s the important part: Such logical ideas or connections are for us a direct part of knowing, just like colors, sounds, or other things we notice with our senses. Or, more simply: We don’t only notice things with our senses, like our eyes or ears. We also “see” with our mind!
Here is another example: When you see two apples, you first just see one apple and then another apple. But at the moment you realize that one apple and another apple make “two apples,” something else appears in your mind: the idea of “two-ness.” You don’t see this “two-ness” with your eyes. The word “two-ness” is not written anywhere. But you still understand it right away, using your mind.
With this, Husserl finds a third level of our mind in his study of knowledge. After sensory perception and “Wesenschau,” he now shows that our thinking itself is also a way of understanding. Husserl calls this categorical intuition: We understand not just things, but also how things are connected.
Blink 6 – The world takes shape in our mind.
At the beginning, we asked how our mind and the world are connected. How can something we only experience inside refer to things that seem to exist outside of us?
Husserl showed step by step that we cannot explain this connection “from the outside.” We can only explain it if we look closely at the mind itself. And he found that we understand the world directly in three ways: through what we see and hear, through “Wesenschau” (understanding the essence), and through thinking.
All three ways are connected. They confirm, complete, and support each other. This creates a clear reality. For example, when you look at a table, you never see it all at once. You see it from the front, then from the side, maybe you touch it. And maybe you remember a table from when you were a child.
Each of these ways of seeing or feeling is unique. But you experience them all as part of one thing. They come together in your mind to form one object: “this table.” Or: “this table, which looks like the table where I always ate as a child.”
So, your mind creates a meaningful whole from single impressions. This is how the world appears to us. It is a network of meanings in what we experience. That’s why phenomenology does not ask if the world really exists. Instead, it asks how the world gets meaning for us.
Husserl’s answer is: The connection between our mind and the world is in the mind itself. Only here, in our direct experience, does meaning appear.
Summary
In daily life, knowledge seems simple. We see, think, judge, and believe we understand things correctly. But as soon as we ask how this actually works, it becomes hard. How can a thought inside us be about something that is outside us?
Husserl shows that we can only answer this question if we start with our experiences. Before we say anything about the world, we must understand how it appears to us. Everything we know starts with experience, which is what is directly given to us in our mind.
This includes things we notice with our senses, the “Wesenschau” (understanding the essence), and understanding logical connections. From many single impressions and thoughts, we then build our experience of the world.
So, our mind is not just a dull mirror. It is the place where meaning comes from.
Source: https://www.blinkist.com/https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/die-idee-der-phanomenologie-de