Husserl in 60 seconds

In ‘Ideas’, the philosopher Edmund Husserl writes: “Strictly speaking, we have not lost anything but rather have gained the whole of being which, rightly understood, contains within itself, 'constitutes' within itself, all worldly transcendencies.” What does he mean in saying this? ... Hold my beer!

According to him, acts of consciousness are directed to objects. Although they need not exist, they still give thoughts their intentionality. In ‘Ideas’, Husserl proposed to parenthesise the objects of intentionality and seek for the residuum. Hereby, he described a consciousness that does not participate in the actualised world of physical things, an attitude called phenomenological ἐποχή (epoche).

Although this resembles methodological doubt, it is not Cartesian scepticism. The actuality of the natural world is not distrusted. Neither, the being of the natural world is explicitly denied (sophism). Rather, the transcendental subject chooses to suspend its judgment about spatiotemporal actualities. Therefore, we lost nothing.

Also, Husserl creates space to find “pure consciousness in its own absolute being”. Not fixated about the natural state of affairs nor troubled by judgments about its existence, the subject experiences all possible worldy transcendencies. Ἐποχή freed the subject from actualised objects of intentionality. Therefore, we gained the whole of being.