Husserl and Phenomenology
The phenomenological reduction
• Bracket all your beliefs, even beliefs in the
existence of the world. Try to reflectively
describe conscious experience just as and
insofar as it is given to you.
Intentionality
• One result of phenomenological reflection is
the discovery of the intentionality of
consciousness. Whenever we think,imagine or
perceive, our minds are always directed
towards something other than the particular
mental state itself
Anti-materialist argument
• If two things are indentical they must share all
qualities in common
• Material things do not exhibit intentionality,
but minds do
• Therefore minds are not material things
Phenomenological critique of Berkeley
• Berkeley held that every time a physical thing
appears different, it is really a different object,
an “idea”. But if we just attend to how we
perceive things, this is not what we find. We
find that we are taking ourselves to perceive
one object, not many. What Berkeley called
different ideas are really just different
perspectives on one and the same object.