Phenomenology rediscovers philosophy by describing lived things rather than questioning reality

Evidence

The phenomenologists’ leading thinker, Edmund Husserl, provided a rallying cry, ‘To the things themselves!’ It meant: don’t waste time on the interpretations that accrue upon things, and especially don’t waste time wondering whether the things are real. Just look at this that’s presenting itself to you, whatever this may be, and describe it as precisely as possible. … Another phenomenologist, Martin Heidegger, added a different spin. Philosophers all through history have wasted their time on secondary questions, he said, while forgetting to ask the one that matters most, the question of Being. What is it for a thing to be? What does it mean to say that you yourself are? Until you ask this, he maintained, you will never get anywhere. Again, he recommended the phenomenological method: disregard intellectual clutter, pay attention to things and let them reveal themselves to you. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 12

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines both the phenomenologists’ watchword ‘To the things themselves!’ and Heidegger’s foundational question of Being — core orientation for someone new to the movement.
• XREF: Connects to a general knowledge of continental philosophy; Heidegger’s question of Being also undergirds Dasein analyses in Being and Time referenced later in the book. — connects to: Phenomenology investigates direct experience of phenomena rather than questions of reality — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 11; Phenomenology restores the unnoticed richness of everyday experience — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 147; Existentialism holds that philosophy grows out of concrete lived experience — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 54 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Phenomenology investigates direct experience of phenomena rather than questions of reality #corroborates (0.95) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 11
• Phenomenology restores the unnoticed richness of everyday experience #expands (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 147
• Post-structuralist philosophy rejected lived experience and active human subjects #contradicts (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 88
• Existentialism holds that philosophy grows out of concrete lived experience #corroborates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 54
• Existentialism sought lived experience rather than explaining it away through abstract systems #corroborates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1025
• Autotheory replaces discursive construction with phenomenological documentation #exemplifies (0.70) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 285