![]() ![]() Indeed, if they did not, they would not be ways into transcendental phenomenology. But they all essentially involve the epoché. Husserl does, indeed, sketch different ways into phenomenology, and some of them are non-Cartesian in not being driven by the demand for apodicticity. "Eidetic" does not imply "transcendental." Moreover, Lotz's tying this first approach to a Cartesian "way" into phenomenology is a mistake. It is this alone that gets us out of the natural attitude and into a transcendental one. It is the first characteristic of phenomenology that is decisive. ![]() If the essence of phenomenology is the eidetic approach, and if this is already to be found in science and play, what is all the phenomenological fuss about? We already have the essence of the matter in hand in the natural attitude. This is already implicit in the previous point. Secondly, to focus exclusively on the eidetic character of phenomenology is totally to miss the radicality of that enterprise. In the absence of arguing such a case, Lotz's focus on play is gratuitous. Perhaps one could argue that play is the transcendental condition of science. As Lotz himself states at one point (23), eidetic variation is a standard procedure in theoretical science - a point that Husserl himself makes. First, there is no reason to focus on play as the "natural" key to imaginative variation. I find this account wholly unconvincing on two counts. Hence, Lotz claims, "We find phenomenological thinking - if we leave Husserl's technical conception of the epoché aside - rooted in anthropological elements that I have described as playing" (24). This is because the concept of play can be "developed within an anthroplogical perspective" (9). Not only does this approach make the phenomenological enterprise humanly intelligible, it roots phenomenology in anthropology. But imaginative variation is something that we are familiar with in the natural attitude. This, according to Husserl, gives us an insight into essences. We imaginatively vary phenomena, and in so doing come up against a limit to what we can thus imaginatively vary. Moreover, highlighting the eidetic nature of phenomenology would make this discipline an easily intelligible enterprise, because an eidetic investigation involves the employment of the imagination. ![]() It would tie phenomenology specifically to the "Cartesian way" into phenomenology and Husserl explicitly states that this is not the only way. But Husserl himself expresses misgivings about this quest. Searching for that which remains even if the world does not exist is to search for that of which we are absolutely certain. Lotz allies the former approach to a demand for apodicticity. Lotz's proposal is to privilege the second of these at the expense of the first. Secondly, phenomenology is an eidetic discipline: it concerns not individual objects or experiences, even when they have been "purified" by the epoché, but essences, the essential kinds of possible objects and experiences. First, it involves the epoché: the "bracketing" of our belief that a real world exists, therefore instituting a "reduction," or restriction, of what the phenomenologist is to investigate what holds good even if there is no such world. Husserl claimed that transcendental phenomenology is characterised by two fundamental features. This is a problem because, as Husserl repeatedly admitted, phenomenology involves taking up an unnatural attitude to the world and ourselves: one that is at variance with our everyday, and even scientific, ways of thought that are dominated by what Husserl called the "natural attitude." So what should induce us to relinquish this attitude, and follow Husserl's "unnatural" path? In the first part of the initial chapter of this book Christian Lotz offers an anodyne suggestion. Throughout his career Husserl was repeatedly vexed by the question of how to introduce transcendental phenomenology. Suffice it to say that this is a book on Husserl that addresses a number of issues that pertain to his philosophy. This is somewhat difficult in the present case, since the book consists of three chapters that do not really hang together and do not present a cumulative account. I would normally begin a review by giving a general account of what the reviewed book is about.
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