On the consequences of phenomenological reduction

Abstract

In the paper, we discuss the consequences of the phenomenological reduction introduced by E. Husserl who intended to apply it for refuting relativism and skepticism, which were the prevailing trends in the Western European philosophy of his time. According to him, what was true was so absolutely and regardless of any circumstances. To discover such truths, he proposed phenomenological reduction which he regarded a modernized Cartesian method of doubt. Like Descartes, Husserl believed that the absolute truth has to be indubitable. The phenomenological reduction demonstrated that only the existence of the transcendental ego is indubitable. This result corresponds to Descartes’s idea of his sum cogito indubitableness. However, unlike Descartes, Husserl took into account that cogito has an intentional structure: every act of consciousness is directed at an object. Husserl called the objects of acts of consciousness intentional objects, or phenomena. The world of phenomena is included in the content of the transcendental ego and is immanent to it. The phenomenal world “duplicates” the transcendental world of the natural objects, but, unlike the latter, exists indubitably. Thus, Husserl came to the conclusion that the phenomenal world has an apodictic existence while the existence of the world of nature is only problematic. But what about other egos? Husserl believed that they had a transcendental existence independent of sum cogito. In his opinion, this is evidenced by the special appresentation in in the composition of sum cogito, which is an analogous apperception. According to Husserl, sum cogito together with other egos forms a community of monads, in which it is a minor central monad. However, we argue that the analogous apperception is incapable of giving an obvious and unquestionable testimony that other egos exist transcendently. The result is that the phenomenological reduction leads to a kind of transcendental solipsism, when the central monad has an apodictic existence, and all peripheral monads are only problematic. Refs 11.