ABSTRACT
Husserl's methodical reliance on reflection for philosophical purposes is clearly out of fashion. Apart from the enduring negative influences of the hermeneutical critique of consciousness and phenomenology's deconstruction, the main reason for this is rooted in the assumption that reflection per se, and therefore phenomenological reflection. In phenomenology's final stage, the limit of the wilful reactivating of contents once present to consciousness and now beyond its grasp is not only reached, but also actively embraced by Husserl as a specifically historical recollection. Husserl's connection of sedimentation with forgetfulness "sedimentation is always somehow forgetfulness" is how he puts it means that phenomenology's historical reflection is driven by the intention of reflecting something other than what is reflected in the sedimented evidence that the reflective critique of its own cognition has made manifest. Overcoming the forgetfulness is not only necessarily beyond the direct power of the will, but also beyond the scope of exact methodical intervention.
