Phenomenal experience and the scope of phenomenology

a Husserlian response to some Wittgensteinean remarks

Andrea Staiti

pp. 151-167

in: Jeffrey Bloechl, Nicolas de Warren (eds), Phenomenology in a new key, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

In this paper I take issue with Wittgenstein's characterization of phenomenology in his Remarks on Colors (1950). Wittgenstein argues that "there is no such thing as phenomenology, but there are indeed phenomenological problems", and that if there were such thing as phenomenology it would be "something midway between logic and natural science." Phenomenological problems would thus be problems concerning exclusively the qualitative dimension of experience. Pace Wittgenstein, I argue Husserl's work proves that a properly understood phenomenology (1) has a bearing on logic in that it clarifies the status of logical entities and relations; (2) has a bearing on natural science in that it clarifies the status of empirical being in its essential relation to consciousness, thereby grounding its amenability to theoretical research; (3) is a unitary discipline, and not a set of scattered problems.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Wittgenstein Ludwig