Husserl defines phenomenology as a descriptive philosophy of the essences of pure experiences. He aims to capture experience in its primordial origin or essence, without interpreting, explaining, or theorizing. The essences with which phenomenology concerns itself are Erlebniswesen, essences of lived experiences: concreta, not abstracta. In the Cartesian Meditations Husserl begins his exploration by declaring the importance of what he calls “a first methodological principle” (Husserl, 1999, p. 13): only knowledge derived from immediate experiential evidence can be accepted.
The phrase “back to the things” (zu den Sachen) has become a watchword for phenomenology. The phrase occurs in several places in Husserl’s writings, and it is not always clear what exactly was meant in it. In the Logical Investigations he says,
“we can absolutely not rest content with ‘mere words.’ . . . Meanings inspired only by remote, inauthentic intuitions—if by any intuitions at all—are not enough: we must go back to the ‘things themselves’” (Husserl, 1981, p. 196).
Generally, “to the things” seems to mean “to the issues that matter.” In his gigantic work the phrase occurs in a variety of forms. At the very least, Husserl urged that a rigorous inquiry of any sort should always radically start from beginnings that can be clear, rather than depart one’s inquiry from existing dogmas and unexamined assumptions.
The impulse to research must proceed not from philosophies but from things and from the problems connected with them. Philosophy, however, is essentially a science of true beginnings, or origins, of rizomata panton. The science concerned with what is radical must from every point of view be radical itself in its procedure. Above all it must not rest until it has attained its own absolutely clear beginnings (Husserl, 1981, p. 196).
Meanwhile, within the context of phenomenology, the phrase “back to the things themselves” has acquired more specific interpretations that align themselves with the very project of phenomenological inquiry. It hints at the central effort of all phenomenology: to somehow return to the world as we originally experience it— to what is given in lived prereflective experience, before we have conceptualized it, before we have even put words or names to it.
We can absolutely not rest content with “mere words,” i.e. with a merely symbolic understanding of words, such as we first have when we reflect on the sense of the laws for “concepts,” “judgements,” “truths,” etc. (together with their manifold specifications) which are set up in pure logic. Meanings inspired only by remote, confused, inauthentic intuitions—if by any intuitions at all—are not enough: we must go back to the “things themselves” (Husserl, 1970, p. 252).
Selected Readings:
Husserl, E. (1931). Ideas: General Introduction to Phenomenology, Vol. 1. (W. R. R. Gibson, transl.) London: George Allen & Unwin.
Husserl, E. (1950). Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. (D. Cairns, transl.) The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1964). The Idea of Phenomenology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1964). The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Husserl, E. (1964). The Paris Lectures. (P. Koestenbaum, transl.) The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenology. (D. Carr, transl.) Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Husserl, E. (1973). Experience and Judgment. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Husserl, E. (1980). Filosofie als Strenge Wetenschap. Amsterdam: Boom.
Husserl, E. (1981). “Philosophy as Rigorous Science.” In P. McCormick and F. Elliston (eds.), Husserl Shorter Works. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 166–197.
Husserl, E. (1982). Logical Investigations, Vol. 1. London: Humanities Press International.
Husserl, E. (1983). “Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy.” First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. (F. Kersten, transl.) Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer.
Husserl, E. (1991). On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893–1917). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer.
Husserl, E. (1999). Cartesian Meditations. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer.
Husserl, E. (2012). Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. London: Routledge.
Husserl, E. (2014). Ideas I. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.