IEP 405: Phenomenology and Environment

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Week 1. Introduction and Husserl

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

Welcome to the phenomenology module

Two aspects of the module

1. It is an introduction to phenomenology as a theory or group of theories developed in the 20th century; you will be acquainted with this aspect through some of the main authors in the phenomenological movement.

2. It is also an introduction to phenomenology as a practical, hands on, method; this aspect comes through a set of exercises that demonstrate aspects of what the theory was getting at and begin to explore its potential applicability to environmental issues.

Through teaching the module over a few years I have become convinced that the best way to do both 1 and 2 is ‘at the same time’. Therefore, each week will contain substantive theoretical material and reflection on primary sources, and also a set of exercises that are there to assist in delivering the learning component of 2. Not only are the exercises necessary to get a good understanding of phenomenology as a practical research technique, but they also throw light on the theoretical material, both in terms of elucidation and potential criticism. Likewise, by studying the primary sources, rather than taking as read their presentation in some more practically oriented applications, we shall be in a better position to critically reflect on those applications.

Our constant guide over the module is Sokolowski’s Introduction to Phenomenology chosen for its overall clarity, its veracity to Husserl who is our starting point, and its presentation of phenomenology as something one might do. Too often phenomenology is presented as an obscure and complex theory with no relationship to how we are in the world, which is, I hope you will find, the very antithesis of what was actually intended.

WHY PHENOMENOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT?

To give you a quick and accessible overview of phenomenology and its potential usefulness for environmental thinking, awareness, practice etc. I would like you to read a paper by Dr Jane Howarth, who used to teach this module before she retired. This became a chapter in Pratt, V. et. al. (2000) Environment and Philosophy Routledge. However, we have available on the web the full version that Jane used for teaching.

Please read the paper Howarth, J. Phenomenology and the Environment Available here.

Exercise 1.1

As Jane Howarth suggests I would like you to take a phenomenological field trip, the focus of this initial exploration is to attempt a phenomenological description. Choose any object that interests you as your phenomenon and spend some time with it and please write down your description. You might like to send the description or an extract from it along with any observations and comments on the process to the discussion site.

Next week we will be looking at some of the central componants of phenomenology and taking the idea of descriptions further. But first we need to do some more theoretical work with an overview of Husserl.

HUSSERL’S PROJECT

There is a really useful Husserl page here that gives links to online sources etc.

The focus of this module is very much the method of phenomenology rather than the phenomenological movement and its main protagonists. I will not say too much about Husserl, the man, except to give a bit of context about why he launched this new philosophical approach and its intended scope. The link above can be used to follow up any aspects of this that interest you.

For Husserl the purpose of philosophy is to provide a rigorous science. We need to be careful about the word science here because we tend to think of this in the terms of the natural sciences particularly physics. It is very common outside of the English speaking world to think of science as any systematic and careful study, so for example the study of literature as an academic discipline is a science. This does not mean that it imports inappropriate methods from the physical sciences it just means it is careful and systematic rather than irrational or undisciplined.

Phenomenology as an approach is developed by Husserl to carry out, what he saw as, a crucial task, to show the way that we could have certain knowledge. In developing this method he throws light on the way the physical sciences of his day had grown out of a particular approach to the world beginning with Galileo and that they were blind to their own foundations in the natural attitude, as opposed to their presented abstract/objective viewpoint. The problem with this is compounded, in his view, by the way the success of the physical sciences meant that their methods were also being applied to areas of life where they were not necessarily appropriate, his initial critique was of psychology as a discipline in this respect. Rather than incorporate scientific assumptions that were, he sought to show based on shaky foundations anyway, we should take a step back to carry out a properly rigorous examination of the world through how we are in the world. The catch phrase of the early phenomenological movement was

"To the Things!"

And the means 'to the things' is to begin with experience and then bring forward certain challenges and processes to that experience that strip it of inessential aspects that arise from our embeddedness in the natural attitude.

Husserl is not, it has to be said, an easy writer to understand, he also wrote a lot and his later work some of which is still in the process of being published for the first time is revealing a complex of shifts and changes in his view. Merleau-Ponty, who we look at in weeks 5 and 6 was very influenced by some of this later work that he studied in the Leuven archives. The general shift in interpretations has been away from the idea that Husserl in his transcendental phenomenology is offering a solipsistic or idealist approach to our experience and towards an interpretation that what he is getting at is reflectively embedded in the world and in our shared experiences, also that although he talks of essences these should not be understood as naively unhistorical or noncultural.

To give you a taste of his writing I have chosen an early lecture from 1917, unlike a chapter of a key text this is short and self contained, I hope you find that any work you have already done with the Sokolowski texts will be helpful in approaching this text.

Please now read Husserl's inaugural lecture at Freiberg it has been made available on the web here

I shall be putting some notes about this lecture and the idea of things being constituted in consciousness on the discussion site.

Exercise 1.2

In order to bring us back to how all of this has a bearing on environmental issues, see how you think phenomenology might be applied. Try to think of a particular case - an environmental problem - that could be helped by this approach. Don't worry if you feel you don't know enough to be able to say just put forward something as a possible candidate and we can see who agrees or could add something to help you.

Please send your suggestions to the discussion site

Husserl's critique of science is dealt with in the module 'Science and the Domination of Nature' Block 2. If you are thinking of concentrating on Husserl rather than Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty, you might like to view the material there as well, but don't get bogged down.

Web notes by Isis Brook updated March 2005