ABSTRACT
Husserl set out to establish phenomenology as a new discipline in philosophy and in science generally: a science of consciousness, distinct from psychology, from epistemology, and from other traditional fields of science and philosophy. Despite a century of practice and theory, however, the discipline remains poorly understood in many circles. Accordingly, we shall begin with an elementary account of the discipline, featuring a basic definition of the field of study and rather simple examples of what phenomenological analysis may look like. We then trace the development of Husserl's conception of phenomenology out of Brentano's idea of descriptive psychology, which Husserl integrated with Bolzano's vision of pure logic. Then we proceed to outline Husserl's analyses of the most basic structures of consciousness, including intentionality (consciousness-of-something), time-consciousness, spatial consciousness, and consciousness of oneself and others. In Chapter 6 we delve into more technical details of theory and method in Husserlian phenomenology, considering links to logical theory, ontology, and “transcendental” philosophy. These technical developments amplify Husserl's basic conception of phenomenology and frame his basic phenomenological analyses within a metatheory that defines Husserl's systematic philosophy as outlined in Chapter 2.
