phenomenology (from Greekphainómenon “that which appears” and lógos “study”) is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness
In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgements, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience
Varieties of Phenomenology
- Transcendental Constitutive Phenomenology studies how objects are constituted in transcendental consciousness, setting aside questions of any relation to the natural world.
- Naturalistic Constitutive Phenomenology (see naturalism) studies how consciousness constitutes things in the world of nature, assuming with the natural attitude that consciousness is part of nature.
- Existential Phenomenology studies concrete human existence, including our experience of free choice and/or action in concrete situations.
- Generative Historicist Phenomenology (see historicism) studies how meaning—as found in our experience—is generated in historical processes of collective experience over time.
- Genetic Phenomenology studies the emergence/genesis of meanings of things within one’s own stream of experience.
- Hermeneutical Phenomenology (also hermeneutic phenomenology or post-phenomenology/postphenomenology elsewhere; see hermeneutics) studies interpretive structures of experience.
- Realistic Phenomenology (also realist phenomenology elsewhere) studies the structure of consciousness and intentionality as “it occurs in a real world that is largely external to consciousness and not somehow brought into being by consciousness.”