Abstract

Phenomenology involves a first‐person approach to consciousness. Husserl initiated phenomenology as a transcendental investigation in opposition to naturalism. It includes a methodologically guided analysis of intentionality as the primary characteristic of consciousness. Phenomenology also addresses the issue of the phenomenal character of consciousness tied to the notion of pre‐reflective self‐awareness, to embodiment, and to variations in intentional structures. It also offers a detailed analysis of the temporal nature of consciousness which helps to explain not only how one can have a coherent experience of an object, but also how the subject of experience – a pre‐reflective self – can maintain identity over time. Husserl and later phenomenologists, like Merleau‐Ponty, emphasized the embodied nature of consciousness in a way that foreshadowed recent enactivist accounts.