The epoché’s suspension of reality questions made Husserl’s phenomenology veer toward idealism

Evidence

Husserl had long ago considered the possibility that the whole intentional dance could just as easily be understood as occurring inside a person’s inner realm. Since the epoché suspended questions about whether things were real, nothing stood in the way of this interpretation. Real, not real; inside, outside; what difference did it make? Reflecting on this, Husserl began turning his phenomenology into a branch of ‘idealism’ — the philosophical tradition which denied external reality and defined everything as a kind of private hallucination. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 162

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines idealism (denial of external reality) and links it concretely to the epoché’s suspension of reality questions.
• XREF: Connects to later Sartrean phenomenology which rejects this inward turn; also to the epoché concept established in chapter 1. — connects to: Sartre rejects Husserl’s epoché because he examines consciousness in-the-world; The epoché brackets reality to focus on lived experience itself — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 146; Phenomenology investigates direct experience of phenomena rather than questions of reality — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 11 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The epoché brackets reality to focus on lived experience itself #expands (0.90) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 146
• Phenomenology investigates direct experience of phenomena rather than questions of reality #expands (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 11