Epoché

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The suspension of assumptions and beliefs in order to engage in pure phenomenological observation.

Phenomenology: This is a branch of philosophy that studies subjective experiences, particularly how they relate to the external world.
Husserl: Edmund Husserl was a German philosopher who developed the concept of epoché, the cornerstone of phenomenology.
Epoché: This is the process of suspending one's beliefs and prejudices to gain a clearer understanding of subjective experiences.
Transcendental Reduction: This is a method for discovering the fundamental features of subjective experiences that are independent of any individual's specific experience.
Intentionality: The relationship between a conscious mind and the object of its awareness. Phenomenologists believe that consciousness always focuses on an object.
Noesis and Noema: Noesis refers to the mental act of knowing, while noema is the object of that knowing.
Thematic Horizons: The limits of possible experiences that shape and define our interpretation of reality.
Eidetic Reduction: This involves extracting the essential features of a particular experience and discovering its essence.
Phenomenological Bracketing: Another term for epoché, bracketing refers to the act of removing preconceptions to better study one's own experiences.
The Life-World: The sum of all the experiences, beliefs, and values that shape an individual's understanding of the world.
Existential Phenomenology: This branch of phenomenology examines the relationship between human identity and the world.
Merleau-Ponty: Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French existential phenomenologist who emphasized the importance of the body in shaping subjective experiences.
Heidegger: Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher who developed a phenomenological approach to ontology, the study of being.
Gadamer: Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher who applied phenomenological concepts to literary interpretation and hermeneutics.
Dasein: A term coined by Heidegger, Dasein refers to the unique, subjective experience of being-in-the-world.
Natural Epoché: This is the most basic and fundamental type of Epoché that involves setting aside preconceptions and biases, and simply describing the object without attributing any meaning to it.
Psychological Epoché: This type of Epoché involves suspending judgments or beliefs that are based on prior experiences, and attempting to approach the object as if encountering it for the first time.
Transcendental Epoché: This type of Epoché involves bracketing subjective experiences and investigating the essential structures of consciousness that enable meaning and intentionality.
Eidetic Epoché: This type of Epoché involves setting aside concrete, individual experiences in order to identify the essential properties or structures of the object, which apply across all instances of that object.
Epoché of the natural attitude: This type of Epoché involves suspending what is normally taken for granted in everyday life, and examining the phenomena encountered from a detached, objective perspective.
Religious Epoché: This type of Epoché involves bracketing theological beliefs, and focusing on the religious experience itself.
Metaphysical Epoché: This type of Epoché involves setting aside assumptions about the nature of reality, and focusing on the phenomena themselves.
Radical Epoché: This type of Epoché involves suspending not only beliefs, but also the very notion of objectivity and subjectivity, in order to access a more purely intentional mode of consciousness.
Cultural Epoché: This type of Epoché involves suspending cultural beliefs and assumptions, and examining the phenomena from a cross-cultural perspective.
"Phenomenology is the philosophical study of objectivity – and reality more generally – as subjectively lived and experienced."
"It seeks to investigate the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world."
"Aiming to describe phenomena as they appear to the subject, and to explore the meaning and significance of the lived experiences."
"This approach has found many applications in qualitative research across different scientific disciplines, especially in the social sciences, humanities, psychology, and cognitive science."
"But also in fields as diverse as health sciences, architecture, and human-computer interaction, among many others."
"Phenomenology is contrasted with phenomenalism, which reduces mental states and physical objects to complexes of sensations."
"And with psychologism, which treats logical truths or epistemological principles as the products of human psychology."
"Transcendental phenomenology, as outlined by Edmund Husserl, aims to arrive at an objective understanding of the world via the discovery of universal logical structures in human subjective experience."
"Other types include hermeneutic, genetic, and embodied phenomenology."
"There are important differences in the ways that different branches of phenomenology approach subjectivity."
"According to Martin Heidegger, truths are contextually situated and dependent on the historical, cultural, and social context in which they emerge."
"All these different branches of phenomenology may be seen as representing different philosophies despite sharing the common foundational approach of phenomenological inquiry."
"The application of phenomenology in these fields aims to gain a deeper understanding of subjective experience, rather than focusing on behavior."
"It seeks to investigate the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world."
"Aiming to describe phenomena as they appear to the subject, and to explore the meaning and significance of the lived experiences."
"All these different branches of phenomenology may be seen as representing different philosophies despite sharing the common foundational approach of phenomenological inquiry."
"But also in fields as diverse as health sciences, architecture, and human-computer interaction, among many others."
"This approach has found many applications in qualitative research across different scientific disciplines, especially in the social sciences, humanities, psychology, and cognitive science."
"Phenomenology is contrasted with phenomenalism, which reduces mental states and physical objects to complexes of sensations, and with psychologism, which treats logical truths or epistemological principles as the products of human psychology."
"The application of phenomenology in these fields aims to gain a deeper understanding of subjective experience, rather than focusing on behavior."