Introduction to Phenomenology

Right up front, the author acknowledges his debt to a colleague for the compositional concept of this book: curtail the distractive burden of academic-style credits, qualifications, and quibbling, and just merely exposit the nominal essence of phenomenology. A simple notion, but what a Big Win! Having read a number of books and essays on this topic over the years, with sustained interest but unresolved questing, this book finally yielded a stable, systematic, encompassing sense of that essence for me. Beyond that prior commitment to a stricter focus, moreover, Sokolowski’s thematic flow and ideational unfoldment facilitate understandability to the degree of actual enjoyment of the exposition of a non-trivial subject.Following two incisive but vital orientational/motivational chapters, the exposition prudently proceeds bottom-up. Most valuable then is the careful stepwise establishment of terminology and constructs as a secure basis for the ensuing composition of the constituent concepts of phenomenology. Not until the thirteenth chapter then does the one encounter Phenomenology Defined. By then, the non-specialist reader can be suitably prepared to assimilate that topic; in fact the treatment here serves appreciably to integrate and solidify the prior content of the book.En route to closure, moreover, Sokolowski augments the exposition with occasional peripheral remarks that situate or illuminate the mainline development of phenomenology’s elements, and in turn, that impart a reassuring sense of relevance and meaning in-the-large. Such a perspective becomes central in the last chapter, Phenomenology in the Present Historical Context. Here, certain pathologies of modernity, stemming principally from the notion of the autonomy of the human mind, are seen to be amenable to remediation through capacities offered by phenomenology: in particular, the recognition of “the transcendental ego as a dimension in human beings” which affords “a hermeneutical and historical dimension of human knowledge….without submerging truth into subjectivity and historical circumstances.”Although I had never heard the word categorial before, the chapter to which I immediately related is entitled Categorial Intentions and Objects. My affinity here stems from my experience with the engineering utility and application of predicate logic. As I reflected upon the substance of this chapter, moreover, it occurred to me that the process described here is analogous to certain routine methods sometimes used in engineering, for example, in specifying communicating extended finite-state machines.Consequently, the overall product of categorial intentionality can be expressed in a logic programming language like Prolog or else in statecharts - both amenable to automated reasoning. The two-part interaction described on pp. 99-101 corresponds more closely to an engineering application, as in the definition of the intended interplay between software agents. It appears to me then that the aforementioned analogy, pertaining to both categorial process and product, can be expanded in rather considerable detail. Yes, I am intrigued if not compellingly challenged!With the ostensibly inordinate disparity among the views of various proponents of phenomenology, it would seem valuable for the non-initiated to have an in-progress reference baseline of some sort to consolidate, cohere, and exhibit phenomenology’s essentials. Given its encompassing systematic coverage, this book is the first candidate which I have encountered that might credibly serve in that role. Further, such a reference baseline desirably ought to be complemented by some explicit detailed applications of phenomenological analysis via non-trivial examples.In this regard, it seems to me that phenomenological analyses can contribute to hermeneutical exploration within epistemic pursuits in general, and not just in the historically based interpretation of texts. In my vision, that could center on probing possibility spaces in formidable ill-defined engineering endeavors. In sum, this book has reinforced my confidence in the merit/viability of such a methodological investigation, and has informed its means/prospects in certain regards as well.

Fr. Sokolowski (he usually drops the title for philosophy) wrote the introduction to phenomenologyat the recommendation of a math colleague. He introduces a number of concepts and terms thatoccur frequently, with one chapter covering the three pairs of whole and parts, identity and manifold(or one and the many) and presence and absence. One of the first concepts discussed is intentionality.In common usage, intention refers to action, but the philosophical meaning is more about thought.Other concepts include the world and appearances, and bracketing. This was the finest explanationof bracketing that I've seen.Sokolowski explains phenomenology's view of philosophy as being "above the comic strip", leavingother fields of knowledge their legitimate domain, such as politics, art, religion, science, economicsand psychology. This allows each their own expertise, but philosophy retains its own legitimacyand cannot be swallowed up by any particular field. For instance, Machiavelli and Hobbes allowedphilosophy to be consumed with politics, deciding that it's better to rule than to be right theoretically.Descartes tried to bring mathematical precision to all philosophical knowledge. And more recently,there's the tension between the continental phenomenology and the Anglo analytic approach.Sokolowski's math friend wanted to focus on the basic ideas of phenomenology rather than gettingcaught up in personalities and the history of philosophy. This is saved for the end. Husserl was thefounder of phenomenology. Heidegger had the greater charisma as a writer and was better at history-he could dialogue with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and medieval theologians. WhileHusserl used his method to approach many questions, Heidegger relentlessly looked at the questionof being. Sokolowski then goes into Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur etc. Josef Seifert has taken a linecritical of the later Husserl as too transcendental, conceding too much to the idealism of Kant. Hepromotes a realist phenomenology interpreting Husserl through Reinach, Scheler, von Hildebrand.Sokolowski has a great interest in political philosophy, which previous phenomenologists had neglected.He explains key figures like Alexis de Tocqueville, Leo Strauss and Michael Oakeshott. Tocqueville showedhow the American revolution was better than the French. But he didn't try to go back to the old regime-he just reminded moderns of earlier forms prior to the modern state. The best modern revolutions arethose like the American, a republic as Plato conceived it, with democratic forms but also some aspectsof aristocracy and other systems working together to provide balance. Leo Strauss "played the ancientsand moderns against each other"-a great and concise summary of a tricky thinker.For Catholic priests trained in Thomism (the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas) there's the question of howphenomenology relates to Thomism. For Sokolowski they are compatible and complementary. Thomismallows proper space for reason, but the starting point is faith and theology. Aquinas was a theologianwho then went into philosophy. Phenomenology begins with experience and leads up to philosophy.Many phenomenologists are Christians or Jews, but others are not.