Phenomenological Psychology

Phenomenological psychology is the use of the phenomenological method to

gain insights regarding topics related to psychology. Though researchers and
thinkers throughout the history of philosophy have identified their work as con-
tributing to phenomenological psychology, how people understand phenomeno-
logical psychology is a matter of some controversy. On the one hand, in light of
contemporary philosophy’s affirmation of qualia as non-reducible, some under-
stand phenomenological psychology to be merely a method for understanding
subjective experience. When phenomenological psychology is understood this
way, clarification is usually sought in terms such as “introspection” and “psy-
chologism.” Put as a question, are the research methods identified as phe-
nomenological and used in psychology ultimately the formalization of methods
for gathering and preserving data regarding merely the subjective experience
of (subjective and objective) events?

On the other hand, phenomenological psychology refers to the use of phe-

nomenology to study the necessary and universal structures of experience. In
this way, phenomenological psychology is grounded in transcendental analysis
as a research method which analyzes the necessary conditions for the possibil-
ity of human experience. Whereas according to the former understanding, the
results of such research supposedly have minimal to no universal generalizabil-
ity, the latter understanding speaks of a cognitional structure universally gen-
eralizable to the human species. This article discusses the nature and history
of phenomenological psychology, addressing the above distinct understandings
of phenomenology as applied to psychology and the distinction between phe-
nomenological and naturalistic psychology.

Table of Contents

What is Phenomenology?
Method vs. Movement
Avoiding Psychologism
Transcendental Analysis and Attitude
What is Psychology?
Natural Science vs. Human Science
Naturalistic vs. Personalistic Standpoint
Elimination vs. Reduction vs. Supervenience
Which Husserl? Whose Phenomenology?
Husserl’s Five Different Introductions to Phenomenology
Husserl’s Three Different Ways to Phenomenological Reduction
Phenomenological Psychology as a Science
Phenomenology vs. Phenomenography
Descriptive Phenomenology
Interpretive-Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Phenomenological Psychology as the Analytic of Ontic Dasein
Heidegger and Science
Heidegger and Psychology
The Therapeutic Value of Minding the Clearing
Conclusion
References and Suggested Further Reading
1. What is Phenomenology?

a. Method vs. Movement

Phenomenology may be understood as a method for investigating the cogni-

tional structure of experience or as a movement in the history of philosophy.
Given the heterodoxy of approaches and emphases in the history of philosophy
to phenomenology, formal explications of phenomenology usually resist speak-
ing as if “phenomenology” refers to a unified “school” of thought. Yet, when
considered as a movement in the history of philosophy, Edmund Husserl (1859-
1938) is identified as the founder of phenomenology, and when considered as a
method Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is identified as the progenitor of phe-
nomenology.

It has become customary when discussing the origin of the term “phenomenol-
ogy,” to refer to Christoph Friedrich Oetinger’s (compare Kant, 1900) 1762 use
of the term and to invoke, following Martin Heidegger, a reference to Johann H.
Lambert’s 1764 New Organon (Neues Organon) from where it appears Kant ob-
tained the term. In a 1770 correspondence with Lambert, the outline of Kant’s
appropriation of the term into the Critique of Pure Reason can already be seen.
According to Kant,

The most universal laws of sensibility play an unjustifiably large role in meta-
physics, where, after all, it is merely concepts and principles of pure reason
that are at issue. It seems to me a quite particular, although merely negative
science, general phenomenology (phaenomenologia generalis), must precede
metaphysics. In it the principles of sensibility, their validity and their limita-
tions, would be determined, so that these principles could not be confusedly
applied to objects of pure reason (Kant, 1986, p. 59, translation slightly modi-
fied; compare Heidegger, 2005, p. 3).

Two pieces are of the utmost importance in this passage from Kant. First, Kant
makes a distinction between the impure and the pure use of reason. Impure
reason refers to the a priori aspects of experience, and these aspects are uni-
versal within the human experience. Further, impure reason is differentiated
from pure reason insofar as impure reason includes what Kant in the above
passage calls “sensibility.” Hence, “phenomenology,” for Kant, should be under-
stood as the “science” that studies the aspects universal to human experience.

The second important piece of the Kant passage is his explicit description of
phenomenology as determining the “principles of sensibility.” Here, “principle”
should be understood in terms of the structural origins of human experience. In
other words, Kant understands the principles of sensibility to belong to the or-
der of necessary and universal conditions of human experience, a.k.a. the
“structure of experience.” Already in this earliest definition by Kant, phe-
nomenology pertains to human experience and, thereby, takes the first-person
perspective of some subject as a point of departure. However, because phe-
nomenology studies the universal and necessary aspects of such experience, it
is neither merely subjective, nor concerned with a particular psychological sub-
ject.
G.W.F. Hegel inherited this understanding of phenomenology from Kant. Accord-
ing to Joseph Kockelmans, “it was only with Hegel that a well-defined techni-
cal meaning became attached” to the term phenomenology. For “Hegel, phe-
nomenology was not knowledge of the Absolute-in-and-for-itself, in the spirit of
Fichte or Schelling, but in his Phenomenology of Spirit [(Phänomenologie des
Geistes)] he wanted to solely consider knowledge as it appears to conscious-
ness” (Kockelmans, 1967, p. 24). Further, beyond the emergence of the term
“phenomenology” in the eighteenth century, Heidegger traces its etymology to
the terms phainomenon and logos in Aristotle, especially Book II of De Anima
(On the Soul), where Aristotle discusses “seeing” (compare Heidegger, 2005,
pp. 3-18).

It was not until the twentieth century, however, that a phenomenological

“movement” is identified in the history of philosophy (compare Spiegelberg,
1965). Though Husserl is identified as the founder of this movement, the per-
plexities involved in understanding this movement as unified are discussed be-
low. What is clear is that Husserl’s initial formulation of phenomenology was in-
fluenced by Franz Brentano (1838-1917). Not only is Brentano credited with
identifying “intentionality” as the mark of the mental, at the University of Vi-
enna “in his lectures on Descriptive Psychology (1889), Brentano employed the
phrase ‘descriptive psychology or descriptive phenomenology’ to differentiate”
a descriptive science of the mental “from genetic or physiological psychology”
(Moran, 2000, p. 8). However, in what will be a central and career-long concern
for Husserl, a descriptive phenomenology or psychology must avoid psycholo-
gism.

Though what is meant by psychologism is discussed below, it may be simply

understood as the attempt to make objective reality depend upon the psycho-
logical features of some subject. For example, on the one hand, though some
thing may be experienced differently by different humans, it is still the case
that there is some thing to be experienced. That means it is not the case that
the thing would be there for some humans and not for others. On the other
hand, despite differences across human subjects (for example color blindness,
mental illness, habitual tendencies) there are objective aspects of the experi-
ence of a thing which are universalizable across humans. Hence, phenomenol-
ogy is not concerned with the non-universalizable.

b. Avoiding Psychologism

Though Husserl identifies more than one kind of psychologism, a characteriza-

tion of Husserl’s phenomenology, insofar as it is an attempt to avoid psycholo-
gism, in general is possible. Psychologism for Husserl is a kind of relativism. In
the two volume set titled Logical Investigations (1900-1901), which Husserl
identified as his entry into phenomenology, psychologism is the theme of the
entire first volume. There he notes, “Psychologism in all its subvarieties and in-
dividual elaborations is … relativism” (Husserl, 2001a, p. 82).

Generally stated, objective aspects of human experience are “psychologized”

when “their objective sense, their sense as a species of objects having a pecu-
liar essence, is denied in favor of the subjective mental occurrences, the data
in immanent or psychological temporality” (Husserl, 1969, p. 169). According to
Husserl, “the expression psychologism” applies to “any interpretation which
converts objectivities into something psychological in the proper sense”
(Husserl, 1969, p. 169; compare Hopkins, 2006). This is to say, that at any mo-
ment of some human subject’s experience the content of that moment may be
differentiated between the objective and subjective aspects of the experience,
and one is guilty of psychologism when one treats the objective (universaliz-
able) aspects of the experience as if they are merely subjective. Though differ-
ent subjects have different perspectives, to claim the reality of a situation is
not universally true because it rather depends on the subjective determination
of subjects is to be guilty of psychologism.

Husserl’s phenomenology, even his “descriptive” phenomenology, may be char-

acterized as an attempt to avoid psychologism. In the second volume of Logical
Investigations Husserl identifies the “exclusive concern” of phenomenology as

experiences intuitively seizable and analyzable in the pure generality of their

essence, not experiences empirically perceived and treated as real facts, as
experiences of human or animal experients in the phenomenal world that we
posit as an empirical fact. This phenomenology must bring to pure expression,
must describe in terms of their essential concepts and their governing formulae
of essence, the essences which directly make themselves known in intuition,
and the connections which have their roots purely in such essences. Each such
statement of essence is an a priori statement in the highest sense of the word
(Husserl, 2001b, p. 86).

Understanding Husserl’s phenomenology as engaged in a “war” (Husserl, 1969,

p. 172) on psychologism helps clarify the actual relation between the various
phenomenological psychology approaches to subjective experience and, at
least, Husserl’s phenomenology, if not the “phenomenology movement” itself.

Not only is Husserl’s statement above helpful toward getting a sense of the
theme of Husserl’s philosophy, it also invokes the important role of the a priori
in his understanding of phenomenology. Contents of experience derived from
the senses, that is the a posteriori, cannot provide universal and necessary
knowledge. Similarly, “empiricism expressly teaches” “more or less vague prob-
abilities resting on experience and induction, concerned with matters of fact in
the life of man” (Husserl, 2001a, p. 56). Hence, Husserl’s concern to uncover
the universal and necessary, that is the a priori, conditions of possible experi-
ence reveals a deep kinship with Kant’s critical philosophy generally, and
specifically his Critique of Pure Reason (compare Kant, 1998; compare Allison,
1975; compare Heidegger, 1997).

This kinship is already indicated in the understanding of phenomenology as a

method, often referred to as “transcendental analysis” or simply “phenomenol-
ogy,” and Kant as the progenitor of this method. Yet, some phenomenological
psychologists are still reluctant to acknowledge the value of Kant, though
Husserl himself eventually affirmed the primacy of Kant’s thinking in such
statements as the following: “The proof of this idealism is therefore phe-
nomenology itself. Only someone who misunderstands either the deepest sense
of intentional method, or that of transcendental reduction, or perhaps both, can
attempt to separate phenomenology from transcendental idealism” (Husserl,
1999, p. 86). As an example, then, of someone who takes the method over the
movement reading of phenomenology, Tom Rockmore in his Kant and Phe-
nomenology provides a cogent characterization. According to Rockmore,
Husserl “believed that he invented phenomenology and that earlier efforts, no-
tably in Hegel, whom he seems to have known little about, but whom he criti-
cized, were not significant” (Rockmore, 2011, p. 101). However, Rockmore goes
further to explain,

Husserl depends on Kant in a number of ways: for example, his concern for phi -
losophy as a rigorous science, his conception of phenomenology as transcen-
dental idealism, the relation of transcendental phenomenology to the life-world,
and, above all, the problem of psychologism. This problem, which arises in
Kant’s criticism of Lockean so-called physiology, leads to a conception of the
subject as a later version of the Kantian transcendental unity of apperception
running through Husserl’s positon from beginning to end (Rockmore, 2011, p.
101).

Rather than address each of these aspects in Husserl’s phenomenology that

are indebted to Kant, a brief discussion of “transcendental analysis”, combined
with the above discussion of “psychologism,” should provide a sufficient base
with which to grasp the following discussion of phenomenological psychology.

c. Transcendental Analysis and Attitude

How then, is “transcendental analysis” to be understood? In From Kant to

Davidson, Andrew Carpenter concisely suggests, “Kant’s transcendental strat-
egy involved investigating the necessary conditions for the possibility of experi-
ence” (Carpenter, 2003, p. 219). Carpenter then indicates three requirements.
Firstly, “Identifying a phenomenon that one’s interlocutors agree exists.”
Secondly, “Investigating the necessary conditions for the possibility of that
phenomenon” (Carpenter, 2003, p. 219). Thirdly, “Examining the philosophical
implications of the resulting ‘transcendental analysis’ of the possibility of the
phenomenon [emphasis added]” (Carpenter, 2003, p. 219). This characterization
correctly emphasizes transcendental analysis as a method with which to arrive
at not the subjective characters of a phenomenon, but the necessary condi-
tions for a phenomenon. Moreover, this characterization correctly illustrates
the nature of the method of phenomenology, as transcendental analysis, by in-
dicating the intermediate position of the method’s results. In other words, phe-
nomenological disclosure of the conditions for the possibility of phenomena al-
lows for a subsequent deeper understanding and discussion of the conditions.

This last insight, namely that the phenomenological method provides access to
the necessary, and human species universal, a priori conditions for the possibil-
ity of experience, helps to contextualize Max Scheler’s (1874-1928) characteri-
zation of the “phenomenological attitude.” According to Scheler, phenomenol-
ogy “is the name of an attitude of spiritual seeing in which one can see or expe-
rience something which otherwise remains hidden” (Scheler, 1973, p. 137).
Then, understanding phenomenology as either a movement or method, it may
also be understood as an “attitude.” Since a “method is a goal-directed proce-
dure of thinking about facts, for example, induction or deduction” or “a particu-
lar procedure of observation and investigation, with or without experiment and
with or without instrumental support for our senses, in the form of micro -
scopes, telescopes, etc.” Scheler argues “Phenomenology, however, has a fun-
damentally different attitude. That which is seen and experienced is given only
in the seeing and experiencing act itself … It does not simply stand there and
let itself be observed” (Scheler, 1973, pp. 137-138). Hence, “attitude” refers to
the relation to a phenomenon which allows it to show itself as itself (compare
Heidegger, 1962, p. 51), when to a different attitude it would have shown itself
differently. That the phenomenological attitude has the character of a science
is ensured by the universality and necessity of what shows itself to observers
who have gained such a relation to phenomena.

As the remaining sections explicate more fully, the discussion so far may al-
ready allow for a preliminary understanding of how phenomenology may be
thought of as a descriptive psychology, and how a descriptive psychology may
be understood as a phenomenological psychology. Whether considered as a
movement, method, or attitude, phenomenology is understood to involve obser-
vation of phenomena yielding results of a specific kind. What is at stake, then,
for observational research to be identified as phenomenological psychology,
will involve the kind of results the research seeks to yield. Contextualizing phe-
nomenological psychology as such, despite the claims of researchers from di-
verse movements utilizing diverse methods and with various attitudes to be en-
gaged in some type of “phenomenology,” will help clarify whether such re-
search is truly “phenomenological” psychology.

Consider that according to Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973), “Husserl once referred

to” Dorion Cairns (1901-1973) as “the future of phenomenology” in America, and
as professor of philosophy and psychology and “arguably Husserl’s closest con-
tinuer” Cairns claimed, “It is an historical fact that Husserl’s investigations of
subjectivity always had a philosophical goal. Their primary goal was never psy-
chological. The results of his investigations can nevertheless be interpreted
psychologically, as he himself indicated” (Cairns, 2010, pp. 1-2). Further, “A
psychological interpretation of Husserl’s results is a simplification. The most
abstruse of his methodological theories, the theory of transcendental-phe-
nomenological reduction, is disregarded when his results are interpreted psy-
chologically” (Cairns, 2010, p. 2). Yet, Cairns wavered, this should not stop “the
psychologist who wants to discover in Husserl’s writings whatever is relevant
to psychology as a natural science” (Cairns, 2010, p. 2).

2. What is Psychology?

a. Natural Science vs. Human Science

It is helpful to give a brief statement regarding the meaning of “psychology,” in

order to understand to what “phenomenological psychology” is supposed to re-
fer. Of all the many distinctions by which the science of psychology may be
sub-divided, the distinction between psychology as a natural and as a non-natu-
ral science retains priority. This distinction may be seen throughout the entire
history of philosophy and psychology (compare Brennan, 2002). Namely, the
distinction is that between psychology as a natural science and psychology as
a human science (compare Van Kaam, 1966).

Generally stated, psychology as a natural science seeks to account for psycho-

logical phenomena as natural phenomena, and psychology as a human science
seeks to account for psychological phenomena as human, social, and cultural
phenomena. Whereas the methods of psychology as a natural science tend to-
ward those found in biology, chemistry or physics, the methods of psychology
as a human science tend toward those found in history, sociology, and anthro -
pology. There is currently a good deal of debate regarding whether phe-
nomenology should be considered only a method viable for psychology as a hu-
man science or as both a human and natural science. Hence, how phenomeno-
logical psychology is to be understood is a matter of some controversy.

It is, therefore, insufficient to simply suggest, along with the Oxford Encyclope-
dia of Psychology, that “The term phenomenological is often used by psycholo-
gists to refer simply to the subjective point of view” (Kazdin, 2000, p. 162). On
one hand, phenomenological analysis proper seeks the universal and necessary
conditions for the possibility of human experiential phenomena. On the other
hand, there is a paradigm for research in psychology as a natural science that
seeks to isolate subjective phenomena, for example qualia, for example,, for
the sake of discovering a correlation with natural phenomena such as electro-
chemical activity of the central nervous system. Despite a departure from phe-
nomenology proper, phenomenological psychology still refers, though ambigu-
ously, to meaningful research projects; however, the specific difference be-
tween phenomenological and non-phenomenological projects in psychology is
not “simply” “the subjective point of view” (compare Husserl, 1977, pp. 110-
115).

b. Naturalistic vs. Personalistic Standpoint

Husserl was aware of the different approaches to psychology as a science, and

though subjective phenomena qua subjective, as both Husserl and Cairns above
explained, are not properly “phenomenological,” there is a distinction from
Husserl’s work which may help further clarify the meaning of phenomenological
psychology. In Book II of Husserl’s Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology
and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, he characterizes both of these ap-
proaches to psychology as depending upon two different types of the specific,
and properly, phenomenological-transcendental attitude. In other words, this is
his distinction between a “naturalistic attitude” and a “personalistic attitude.”
Husserl notes phenomenologists can move “quite effortlessly, from one attitude
into another, from the naturalistic into the personalistic, and as to the respec -
tive sciences, from the natural sciences into the human sciences” (Husserl,
2000, p. 190). Moreover, the personalistic attitude is “the attitude we are al-
ways in when we live with one another, talk to one another, shake hands with
one another…” (Husserl, 2000, p. 192).
At this point, a number of different ways to identify generally the relation be-
tween psychology and phenomenology are available. Firstly, some part or por-
tion of psychology may be seen as the study of merely subjective phenomena,
and such a psychology would, thereby, incorrectly be called “phenomenologi-
cal” in the proper philosophical sense. Moreover, even if subjective concerns in
psychology are not the results of introspection, they pertain exclusively to em-
pirical phenomena and would not be properly “phenomenological.” Secondly,
the topics and themes of psychology may be seen as resulting from an attitude
between a natural attitude and the properly phenomenological-transcendental
attitude. In this way, the study of such topics and themes should lead ulti-
mately to consideration of the transcendental features involved. Thirdly, psy-
chology as a whole may be divided into the different attitudes of the naturalis-
tic and personalistic with research in psychology as a natural science and as a
human science resulting from these, respectively, and with both attitudes sub-
ordinated to the properly phenomenological attitude (compare Husserl, 1977, p.
166). Notice, in this way all phenomena, as phenomena of human experience,
fall within the scope of phenomenology proper; however, it points to a signifi-
cant confusion on the part of the psychologist when the non-universal, non-nec-
essary aspects of the phenomena are taken as the features to be studied
through phenomenological science. Hence, it is as if these three general identi-
fications relate to one another circularly, since failure to accomplish the tran-
scendental-phenomenological viewpoint of the third may place the psycholo-
gist, studying merely subjective phenomena, back at the first.

c. Elimination vs. Reduction vs. Supervenience

From the properly phenomenological perspective of the third general identifica-

tion, then, the following comments by Kant and Husserl are understood more
easily. Kant famously argued in the Preface to his Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science that empirical psychology can never be a proper natural sci-
ence (Kant, 2004, p. 7). For Kant, the naturalization of psychology suggests a
denial of free will in humans, a position his philosophy fundamentally rejects.
Similarly Husserl complained, “What is needed is a new ‘psychology’ of an es-
sentially different type, a universal science of the spirit that is neither ‘psy-
chophysical’ nor natural-scientific” (Husserl, 2000, p. 181; compare Husserl,
1970).

Yet, as indicated with the primary division of psychology into natural and hu-
man science, psychology tends to take a psychophysical understanding of hu-
man being as a point of departure for further research (compare [../hard-con/]).
In fact, psychologists may be classified by a taxonomy of relations between the
psychological and the physical. There are those who seek an elimination of ei -
ther the psychological or the physical in favor of the other, and there are a
number of ways to take up such a position. However, the most popular of such
ways today is, perhaps, “eliminative materialism” (compare Churchland, 1981).
Next, there are those who seek a reduction of either one of the psychological,
or the physical, to the other. Though, again, it seems more popular and plausi-
ble today to find the reduction of the psychological to the physical advocated.
Lastly, there are those who seek to characterize the relation in terms of super -
venience. The perhaps most popular articulation suggests that psychological
states cannot be eliminated in favor of, or reduced to, physical states; how-
ever, there can be no changes to psychological states without there being ac-
companying changes to physical states (compare Kim, 1984; compare Kim,
1987).

Exemplified by his books Mind in a Physical World (1998) and Physicalism, Or

Something Near Enough (2005), Jaegwon Kim arrives at a position which privi-
leges the physical over the psychological, while characterizing the relation be-
tween the two as one of “conditional functional reduction.” Now, to say that
some mental property is “functionalizable” is to say that its presence as a prop-
erty of consciousness can be associated with the function it serves regarding
the physical environment. Hence, though Kim affirms the irreducibility of the
qualitative phenomenal properties (qualia) of consciousness to physical proper-
ties, there is a conditional reduction of qualia to the functional role they play
regarding the organism’s adaptation to the environment. Insofar as these posi-
tions regarding the psychophysical constitution of human beings indicate the
context of the elements involved in research identified as within phenomeno-
logical psychology, and with the avowed goal of “naturalizing” the phenomenol-
ogy of qualia, (compare Varela, 1992) how might Husserl see such research
projects?

To sketch a brief response to this question, beyond the gestures already made
above (for example, the third general identification of phenomenological psy-
chology), consider the following comments from a section titled “The delimita-
tion of somatology and psychology” in Book III of Ideas. According to Husserl,

What one has here, from the point of view of natural science, is a number of in -
dividual human beings each with a particular consciousness, a particular psy-
che … belonging to each. In the psycho-physical interrelated context that is
made possible by the material interrelations of the animate organisms, there
arise in the individual psyches acts that are intentionally directed at something
psychically external. But what appears here is always only new states of the in-
dividual psyches (Husserl, 1980, p. 18).

Later in the same book, Husserl clarifies,

As we know, there come continually into consideration in the phenomenologi-

cal exploration of the acts both consciousness itself and the correlate of con-
sciousness, noesis and noema. To describe and determine according to
essence the phenomenon of intuition of a physical thing … is at the same time
also to keep in mind that the act in itself is the “meaning” of something and
that what is meant as such is “physical thing.” But to substantiate this, indeed,
to make what is meant as physical thing as such, namely as correlate (some -
thing perceived as such with regard to the perception, something named as
such with regard to the naming), the object of research … that is not to explore
physical things, physical things as such. A “physical thing” as correlate is not a
physical thing; therefore the quotation marks (Husserl, 1980, p. 72).

Simply put, “one must not confuse noema (correlate) and essence” (Husserl,
1980, p. 73). Wherever we go, we bring the necessary and universal conditions
for the possibility of experience to our experiences. Both the naturalization
project and the merely subjective point of view project are misidentified with
phenomenological psychology, considering phenomenology proper; moreover,
both of these projects may fail at avoiding psychologism (compare Husserl,
2001b, p. 86, quoted above; compare Husserl, 1977, p. 38).

3. Which Husserl? Whose Phenomenology?

a. Husserl’s Five Different Introductions to Phenomenology

As David Carr discusses in his “Translator’s Introduction” to Husserl’s The Cri-

sis of the European Science and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduc-
tion to Phenomenological Philosophy, Husserl produced a number of different
“introductions” to phenomenology. However, as the above discussion of the
progressive movement to transcendental phenomenology shows, there is a con-
tinuity to be discerned across the introductions (compare McKenna, 1982). Yet,
at the same time, Husserl’s continued attempt to “introduce” phenomenology is
widely seen as contributing to the controversy regarding the meaning of the
term “phenomenology” itself (compare Spiegelberg, 1965). As Rockmore put it,
“Husserl’s unconvincing claim to have invented phenomenology, which he
struggles to define in a long series of texts, leaves both the meaning of the
term, the genesis of the approach, and its import unresolved” (Rockmore, 2011,
p. 191). According to Carr, Husserl attempts an introduction to phenomenology
in all of the following books: Logical Investigations (1900); Ideas (1913); Formal
and Transcendental Logic (1929); Cartesian Meditations (1931); The Crisis of
the European Sciences (1937).

Further, as William McKenna mentions in his Husserl’s “Introductions to Phe-

nomenology” and Iso Kern explicates in his article, “The Three Ways to the
Transcendental Phenomenological Reduction,” these five books point to three
ways to the much-discussed phenomenological reduction . Iso Kern, following
and clarifying Hans-Georg Gadamer, indicates a “Cartesian way,” a way through
“intentional psychology,” and a way through “ontology” into the “transcenden-
tal phenomenological reduction” (Kern, 1977, p. 126). Kern suggests these
three ways are “not always sharply and clearly separated” in Husserl’s work.
These ways may be seen as responses to questions such as “Through which
steps in thinking does philosophic cognition arise?” and “How does knowing
emerge from the aphilosophical life and become genuinely philosophical?”
(Kern, 1977, p. 126).

b. Husserl’s Three Different Ways to Phenomenological Reduction

Since each of the ways explained by Kern are ways into the transcendental
phenomenological attitude, only their differences will be briefly characterized
here. The characterization of their differences is helpful toward clarifying what
is meant by phenomenological psychology. This is because across the differing
introductions, it is not difficult to lose sight of the many different unifying
themes with which to coherently understand the relation between phenomenol-
ogy and psychology. The key is to see that the introductions, rather than being
set against one another, should be unified around Husserl’s attempts to in-
struct readers into the transcendental phenomenological attitude.

The Cartesian way seeks an absolute starting point from which philosophy may
be understood as a science. This starting point demands absolute evidence,
and this means simply clear and distinct evidence that cannot be doubted. Be -
lief in the mind-external world is then to be doubted, since there is supposed to
be no absolute evidence for belief in the mind-external world. Yet, knowledge
about the world is based on belief in the world’s existence, and experience of
what was previously believed to be the world does not cease when belief in the
world is doubted. Hence, this relation to the experience of the “world,” is a re-
duced relation. The final step in the Cartesian way is to understand the inten-
tional relation to the “world” as that of the “cogito,” that is the intentionality of
the acting ego, such that the cogito provides absolute evidence for itself as the
starting point for philosophy understood as a science. Notice, phenomenology
involves understanding how the intentional structure of the subject provides
objective knowledge of the mind-external world, and as such phenomenology’s
interest in the intentional structure of the subject is not “subjective.”

The way through “intentional psychology,” then, according to Kern, takes the
“physical sciences, which are interested purely in the physical and abstracts,
from everything psychic. In opposition to these sciences, Husserl conceives
the idea of a complementary science which is interested purely in the psychic
and abstracts from everything physical” (compare Kern, 1977, p. 134). By point-
ing out that relations between objects in the lived experience of humans are
not relations between those objects in mind-external reality, Husserl points the
way to “lived experience.” This may be compared to the focus on the inten-
tional relation to the “world” in the Cartesian way. Moreover, the lived experi-
ence pertains to the subject, but it is not “subjective.” Kern provides the follow-
ing two quotes from Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences as convinc-
ing evidence of Husserl’s view: “Psychology, the universal science of the purely
psychic in general – therein consists its abstraction” (Husserl, 1978, p. 252) and
“in the pure development of the idea of a descriptive psychology, which seeks
to bring to expression what is essentially proper to souls, there necessarily oc-
curs a transformation of the phenomenological-psychological epoché and re-
duction into the transcendental” (Husserl, 1978, p. 257).

Lastly, the “ontological” way may be seen as a direct attack on the psycholo-
gist who might mistakenly think phenomenology to refer “simply to the subjec-
tive point of view” (compare Kazdin, 2000, p. 162). According to Kern, “Rather,
the objective ‘theme’ is implied intentionally in the subjective ‘theme’ (in the in-
tentional life of subjectivity)” (compare Kern, 1977, p. 137). Further, “The
change of attitude is to be compared with the transition from the second to the
third dimension of space, which contains in itself the second dimension. This
subjectivity [emphasis added], in which everything objective is constituted, is
the transcendental one” (Kern, 1977, p. 137). Hence, the psychologist who
takes phenomenological psychology to be an investigation of “the subjective
point of view” understood as a “perspective through which the individual expe-
riences his or her world [emphasis added]” (compare Kazdin, 2000, p. 164) is
not actually engaged in phenomenological psychology. Further, the popular ten-
dency to emphasize a subject’s “perspective” as transcending both other sub-
jects and the potential truth value of criticism from other subjects stems from a
misunderstanding of phenomenological psychology. As Kern explains, “This
subjectivity … is exhibited as an intersubjectivity, made communal through the
common objectivity,” and this science is an “exploration of the universal tran-
scendental life, in which worldly objectivity [emphasis added], with its ontologi-
cal a priori, is constituted” (Kern, 1977, p. 137).

Though an exhaustive list of phenomenologists is outside the scope of this arti-

cle, what follows is a brief list of major figures in phenomenology. The purpose
of this list is to suggest that, despite the heterogeneity of approaches across
the figures peopling the list, as far as these individuals were engaged in phe -
nomenology, they participated in a method grounded in the transcendental atti-
tude. These figures include: Edmund Husserl; Martin Heidegger; Jean-Paul
Sartre; Maurice Merleau-Ponty; Max Scheler; Edith Stein; Adolf Reinach; Moritz
Geiger; Roman Ingarden; Dietrich von Hildebrand; Aron Gurwitsch; and Gabriel
Marcel, among many others.

4. Phenomenological Psychology as a Science

a. Phenomenology vs. Phenomenography

As should be clear, phenomenological psychology, as a science, concerns itself

with what is necessary and universal in human experience. This is opposed to
the approach to human experience that seeks to record subjective experience
as subjective. Such an approach, rather than be called “phenomenological,” is
better referred to as “phenomenographical” (compare Marton, 1981). Whereas
“phenomenology” refers to the study of what is objective in subjective experi-
ence, including the structures of subjectivity itself, “phenomenography” refers
to the study of what is subjective in subjective experience.

With this distinction in mind, there are a number of research methods classified
as within phenomenological psychology to consider. In Phenomenological Psy-
chology: Theory, Research, and Method, Darren Langbridge explains, “when ap-
plying phenomenological philosophy to psychology, we aim to focus on people’s
perceptions of the world in which they live and what this means to them: a fo -
cus on people’s lived experience” (Langbridge, 2007, p. 4). Langbridge links
“developments” of phenomenology in philosophy with their corresponding re-
search methods in psychology. For example, he claims “phenomenology” refers
to a “descriptive approach,” “existentialism” refers to an “interpretive ap-
proach,” and “hermeneutics,” refers to a “narrative approach” (Langbridge,
2007, p. 5). Though not listed by Langbridge, the perhaps most promising of the
approaches to phenomenological psychology may be seen in Aron Gurwitsch’s
work in the phenomenology of Gestalt psychology (compare Gurwitsch, 1966).

b. Descriptive Phenomenology

Descriptive phenomenology, as seen for example in Amedeo Giorgi’s The De-

scriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology, results from not a
“transcendental” attitude but one “more appropriate for psychological analyses
of human beings since the purpose of psychology as a human science is pre-
cisely the clarification of the meanings of phenomena experienced by human
persons” (Giorgi, 2009, p. 98). Associating phenomenological psychology with
psychology as a human science, Giorgi suggests that in “psychology as a hu-
man science … The priority of an already existing methodology is not posited.
Rather, what is posited as the privileged position is fidelity to the phenomenon”
(Giorgi, 1971, p. 52). Hence, in the “descriptive phenomenological method in
psychology” Giorgi explains, “The situations to be described are selected by
the participants themselves and what is sought is simply a description that is
as faithful as possible” (Giorgi, 2009, p. 96; compare Gilbert and Fisher, 2006;
compare MacLeod, 2002; compare Loftus, 1979). Further, Giorgi acknowledges
“The fact that the descriptions come from others could be challenged from a
phenomenological perspective … but the descriptions provided by the experi-
encers are an opening into the world of the other [emphasis added] that is
shareable” (Giorgi, 2009, p. 96).

c. Interpretive-Hermeneutic Phenomenology

Without discussing the other “developments” of phenomenological psychology

here, the following two examples should suffice to contextualize how these de-
velopments relate to the descriptive approach. On the one hand, regarding an
“Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis,” it is claimed,“One is trying to get
close to the participant’s personal world” (Smith and Osborn, 2003, p. 51). On
the other hand, it is suggested that the “research results” of such interpretive
activities open “upon a limitless field of possible interpretations” (compare
Kazdin, 2000, p. 164). Though it is not immediately clear how the results of any
research could be subject to “limitless” interpretations, supposing such a char-
acterization were true, it is also not clear what the purpose of research in psy -
chology that is open to “limitless” interpretation might be. Hence, the contro-
versy and challenges remain for phenomenological psychology. That is to say,
the psychological sciences that self-identify as phenomenological may be inter-
rogated regarding whether they avoid psychologism and whether they might be
better classified as phenomenographic.

5. Phenomenological Psychology as the Analytic of Ontic Dasein

a. Heidegger and Science

As exemplified by work found in the Zollikon Seminars, Martin Heidegger has

provided a number of valuable insights into how phenomenology may relate to
psychology. This is despite the commonly held misconceptions regarding Hei-
degger’s relation to science. For a clear and concise discussion regarding Hei-
degger’s relation to science, see Joseph Kockelmans chapter titled “Heidegger
on the Essential Difference and Necessary Relationship Between Philosophy
and Science” (Kockelmans, 1970, pp. 147-167). According to Kockelmans, Hei-
degger does indeed see an “unbridgeable gap between philosophy and sci-
ence.” Yet, “Although scientists generally interpret this view of Heidegger’s as
a disparaging one, this is in no way his intention” (Kockelmans, 1970, p. 148).
In the November 23rd 1965 seminar of the Zollikon Seminars Heidegger explic-
itly states his position regarding “science.” Heidegger declares, “I have reser-
vations about science – not science as science – but only about the absolute
claims of natural science” (Heidegger, 2001, p. 123; compare Heidegger, 1972,
p. 77; compare Caputo, 1973; compare Krell, 2008, p. 12). From this discussion,
Heidegger provides his understanding of the distinction between psychology
and philosophy, and this distinction applies to phenomenology in essentially
the same way it was reflected on above in Husserl. That is to say, Heidegger
suggests phenomenological psychology is intermediate to phenomenological
transcendental philosophy. In Heidegger’s vocabulary, this means that phe-
nomenological psychology is “ontic” and phenomenological transcendental phi-
losophy is “ontological.”

b. Heidegger and Psychology

What this means for Heidegger is that when phenomenology is used as a

method to understand being, then phenomenology is used philosophically, and
when phenomenology is used as a method to understand being as human being,
then it is used psychologically or anthropologically. Put another way, “ontic”
refers to the facts related to human being-in-the-world, and “ontological” refers
to the conditions for the possibility of being-in-the-world. Since being is a condi-
tion for the possibility of being-in-the-world, an analysis of being will yield onto-
logical insights. Heidegger clarifies, despite the similarity of the language, “Da-
seinanalysis is ontic. The analytic of Dasein is ontological” (Heidegger, 2001, p.
124). Further, “in Being and Time there was often talk about ‘Daseinanalysis.’ In
this context, Daseinanalysis does not mean anything more than the actual exhi-
bition of the determination of Da-sein as thematized in the analytic of Da-sein”
(Heidegger, 2001, p. 125). Similar to the discussion of the possibility of phe-
nomenological psychology regarding Husserl above, this is an important dis-
tinction for phenomenological psychology in Heidegger, since “Insofar as the
latter is defined as existence, these determinations of Da-sein are called exis-
tentialia (compare Keen, 1975). Therefore, the concept of ‘Daseinanalysis’ [in
contrast to psychological ‘Dasein-analysis’] still belongs to the analytic of Da-
sein and, therefore, to ontology” (Heidegger, 2001, p. 125).

To be clear, beings may be described in terms of cultural and historical facts.

However, such descriptions fall short of understanding being as the condition
for the possibility of beings. Frederick Wilhelmsen (1923-1996) famously de-
scribed this difference in terms of beings as nouns and be-ing as a participle.
Heidegger’s point here, then: it is not so much the case that ontic concerns are
psychologistic (though they may be) as it is the case that they fall short of au-
thentic ontological insights. What this means for phenomenological psychology
is that insofar as it merely views the ontic fact domain of (human) being, then,
according to Heidegger (like Kant and Husserl before him), it falls short of the
transcendental attitude. However, just as descriptive psychology was seen
above as intermediate on the way to the transcendental attitude, it is possible
to interrogate the facts of human being through transcendental analysis, and
such an interrogation leads to the “conditions for the possibility” of such facts.
The analysis of these conditions, then, is the “analytic of Da-sein.” Hence, phe-
nomenological psychology is not an exclusive enterprise insofar as the phe-
nomenologically trained psychologist can, through such an analytic, rise to
transcendental phenomenology and study ontology; though in doing so, they
are no longer studying psychology. That is to say, on the one hand, psychology
is clearly delimited from ontology. On the other hand, psychology is grounded in
ontology. There can be no human being, if there is no be-ing. So, what is the
value of phenomenology for psychology?

c. The Therapeutic Value of Minding the Clearing

The term “existential” should invoke the notion of freedom. As disclosing the
existentials (existentialia), then, phenomenology may be used as a method to-
ward an awareness, which is psychologically therapeutic, in its affirmation of
human freedom. Just as existentialism and freedom belong together, so too
awareness of the conditions making human experiences possible, when consid-
ered from the first-person perspective regarding lived experience, may be ther-
apeutic. In essence this is the training of a client seeking psychotherapy to per-
form a phenomenological reduction to accomplish a transcendental attitude to
their own lived experience. This is Da-sein analysis. This may be accomplished
through analysis of the existentials conditioning the person-seeking-therapy’s
being. Ultimately this is ontology, through psychology, not psychology; how-
ever, it is still related to psychology as being psychotherapeutic. By bringing
each (human) being to an awareness of the clearing of being in which their be-
ing human in accomplished, they may “take hold of” their being differently
(compare Heidegger, 1962), and this is an affirmation of the person’s freedom,
which may be therapeutic given the everyday possibilities through which hu-
mans may forget the be-ing which allows beings to be.

6. Conclusion

The above discussion of phenomenology from the perspectives of a movement,

a method and an attitude, clarified by examining shifts found in Husserl’s work,
provided support to the value of understanding phenomenology as related to
transcendental philosophy. Further, such an understanding of phenomenology
elucidates the consistent thread running through the heterogeneous styles of
the major figures standardly considered phenomenologists. In order to clarify
further the meaning of phenomenological psychology as a science, phe-
nomenology was contrasted with phenomenography. Phenomenography refers
to the study of the merely subjective aspects of experience. Toward clarifying
possible confusion regarding the potential use of phenomenology for psychol-
ogy, the claim was made that much of was is called “phenomenology” today is
actually phenomenography. This is an important insight involving an important
distinction, and perhaps with further dissemination the controversy surrounding
phenomenology will be resolved.

Lastly, Heidegger’s style of phenomenology and its relation to psychology was

discussed. This included clarification, through Heidegger’s own words, of his
position regarding science. Heidegger’s Da-sein analysis continues to have in-
fluence around the globe as a viable psychotherapeutic method. Interestingly,
Heidegger’s Da-sein analysis, though expressed near the end of his career, has
deep ties with and resonates with his Being and Time. Yet, this also extends
Heidegger’s value and influence beyond even academic philosophy and psy-
chology, since Heidegger’s philosophy, as a kind of therapy does not, necessar-
ily, require a therapist. That is to say, Heidegger’s teaching regard the first-per-
son perspective in such a way that it becomes possible for readers in under-
standing his vocabulary to begin to “see” being as he described it. The thera-
peutic value involved then, points further to the efficacious presence of philos-
ophy in psychology and phenomenological psychology.

7. References and Suggested Further Reading

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Author Information

Frank Scalambrino
Email: Scalambrinof9@gmail.com
University of Dallas
U. S. A.