Methodological preliminaries

pp. 19-40

in: Eduard Marbach, Mental representation and consciousness, Deventer, Kluwer, 1993

Abstract

Communicating phenomenological results by precise language is a notoriously difficult task.² The main reason for this lies with the fact that phenomenology makes consciousness the theme of a reflective investigation and that — at its level of description/explanation — it does so without being concerned about the insertion of consciousness in the natural world. Rather, activities of consciousness such as perceiving, imagining, remembering, judging etc. are studied in themselves in virtue of the fact that, instead of simply being performed, they can be represented and reflected upon. To be interested in consciousness phenomenologically, i.e. studying it in its own essence (Eigenwesentlichkeit), or in its purity (Reinheit), is to be interested in something subjectively available only. For my purposes of entering into a discussion with contemporary philosophers of mind and cognitive psychologists it is important to show that this subjective and reflective turn does not confine phenomenological judgments to "mere private validity"³. The difficulties here involved have often been discussed, and various ways of overcoming them have been devised.⁴