Phenomenal Experience and The Scope of Phenomenology. A Husserlian Response to Some Wittgensteinian Remarks

This chapter examines the criticism of Husserl’s Ideen articulated by the Neo-Kantians Rickert and Natorp. Both lament that Husserl’s method of eidetic seeing is an intuitionistic shortcut that does not justify the knowledge it claims to provide. Natorp also raises doubts about the appropriateness of the eidetic method and phenomenological reflection for the investigation of subjectivity. Its answer this criticism distinguishing between intuition of an essence and knowledge of that essence and by insisting on the necessity of an eidetic investigation of consciousness, and concludes with a discussion of phenomenology’s claim to be the foundational science for philosophy.