Hello dear members,
As a student of English literature I have to study some introductory philosophy to interpret literary works. As it is well-known the modern literary criticism starts with the work of the German philosopher, Edmund Husserl, and his famous phenomenology. Going through his philosophy, I have understood the concepts that he bases phenomenology upon. He first argues that to see the world as a separate natural existence and independent of the mind is wrong. He calls this perspective "natural attitude" and he rejects it. The perspective that empirical thinkers held; they ignored the role of the mind in perceiving the world. A perspective that finally gave rise to positivism. He then claims that everything in the universe must go through the minds of the subjects, so what is out there is a "pure phenomenon". He disagrees with the Kantian idea that "the things in themselves" are inaccessible because we never get out of our heads and see them. On the contrary, he believes that we can "reduce" these phenomena by "bracketing" all other immediate experiences that interfere with a certain phenomenon in our consciousness. This "phenomenological reduction" can help us arrive at the "essence" of things which are invariable and unchangeable. This method finally gives us a genuinely reliable knowledge based on which we can construct sciences. So phenomenology is a science of sciences. Husserl aimed at finding a way to finally get to the concrete essence of things in themselves. He also called this essence "Eidos", the Greek word for "type". An eidetic abstraction is an unchangeable concept, such as "redness" or "jealousy", although their degree varies in different subjects.


I just gave a very brief description of what i have understood from Husserl. First of all i want to know if I am wrong in any of the points I have mentioned and the second thing I am concerned with is an approach that Husserl believed in. He called his approach "intuitive". He claimed that phenomena need not be interpreted and reasoned, instead they must be understood intuitively. Can anyone help me understand what he means by that? Are not our intuitions deceitful and subjective? if it is subjective, how is it possible to get to the things in itself?


By the way, I have learned all this from a book I am reading called "literary Theory, An Introduction" by Terry Eagelton"