Phenomenological cognition of the a priori

Husserl's method of "seeing essences" (Wesenserschauung)

Burt C. Hopkins

pp. 151-178

in: Burt C. Hopkins (ed), Husserl in contemporary context, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

The phenomenological cognition of the a priori at issue in the method of "seeing essences" (Wesenserschauung) has as its methodological prerequisite the initial securing of access to non-particular meaning formations and, essentially connected with this, access to an experiential domain that transcends atomistic sensations. The problematic underlying the necessity of securing such accesses is the modern empirical formulation of the epistemological problem of "abstraction." Hume's critique of Locke's claim that abstract (i.e., non-particular) ideas exist in the mind separate from the particular ideas to which they both refer and from which they emerge, comprises the focus of Husserl's meditations on the separability of formal meaning from concrete particulars as well as his meditations on the process of abstraction underlying generalization and formalization per se.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund