The life-world and the phenomenological epoche : a study of these concepts in Edmund Husserl's The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology

Stafford, Antoinette Marie (1973) The life-world and the phenomenological epoche : a study of these concepts in Edmund Husserl's The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The clearly stated goal of Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology was to enable philosophy for the first time, to achieve a "rigorously scientific knowledge" of the contents of human experience. Through-out his entire career, Husserl strove to realize this goal, through the development and use of the techniques of epoche and reduction. In his last major work, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl claims that these procedures have at last given him access to the "life-world," a primordial sphere which is the presupposition of all experience, and which, therefore, comprises the ultimate phenomenological study. -- A thesis presented here has as its central aim a critical clarification of the relationship between the two fundamental phenomenological themes of the "epoche" and the "life-world." This takes the form, in Chapter I, of a consideration of the use of the concepts of "world" and "epoche" in Husserl's work previous to the Crisis. In Chapter II, the meanings and function of the term "life-world" within the Crisis, particularly Part IIIA, are examined in detail, with the specific intention of revealing why Husserl views the "life-world" as the utlimate field of study for phenomenological science. The final chapter is a critical analysis of Husserl's attempt to conduct an epoche with respect to the life-world, and leads to the conclusion that a complete life-world reduction is, in principle, impossible. Therefore, it is argued, if the phenomenological ideal of a rigorously scientific philosophy entails an epoche of the life-world, then, for reasons arising out of Husserl's own philosophy, this ideal must be abandoned.

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