Edmund Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology seeks a priori knowledge of essences and eidetic laws pertaining to conscious experience and its objects. Husserl believes that such eidetic knowledge has a higher epistemic status than the inherently fallible empirical knowledge, but a closer reading of his work shows that even eidetic claims are subject to error and open to modification. In this article, I develop a self-correcting account of Husserl’s method of eidetic variation, arguing that eidetic variation plays a critical role in both (...) challenging and improving upon the eidetic results in phenomenology. More specifically, I argue that the self-correcting account of eidetic variation 1) is consistent with Husserl’s own formulations of his eidetic methodology and epistemic principles; 2) captures the dual epistemic function of eidetic variation as means for both testing and intuitively validating eidetic claims; and 3) offers methodological support for contemporary attempts to integrate eidetic variation with non-eidetic methods and resources. To substantiate these claims, I first contrast the self-correcting account with the falsificationist interpretations of eidetic variation. Then, I turn to three applications of eidetic variation in order to examine how eidetic phenomenology could draw from real-life deviations, artificial variations, and critical–historical reflection. The goal is to lay the methodological groundwork for a self-correcting and integrative account of eidetic variation and illustrate its usefulness in research practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe distinction between minimal self and narrative self has gained ground in recent discussions of selfhood. In this article, this distinction is reassessed by analysing Zahavi and Gallagher’s account of selfhood and supplementing it with Husserl’s concept of person. I argue that Zahavi and Gallagher offer two compatible and complementary notions of self. Nevertheless, the relationship between minimal self and narrative self requires further clarification. Especially the embeddedness of self, the interplay between passivity and activity, and the problems of uniqueness (...) and persistence are better understood with Husserl’s analysis of person and its central concepts of position-taking, habitualities, and overall style. The embeddedness of self is elucidated by outlining how person is related to its environment, to other people, and to its past. This relational notion of self is both passively constituted and actively shaped: person mediates between minimal self characterized by perspectival ownership... (shrink)

There is a long-standing tradition of questioning the viability and scientificity of first-person methods. Husserlian reflective methodology, in particular, has been challenged on the basis of its perceived inability to meet the standards of objectivity and reliability, leading to what has been called “phenomenological skepticism” ( Roy, 2007 ). In this article, I reassess this line of objection by outlining Daniel C. Dennett’s empirically driven skepticism and reconstructing his methodological arguments against Husserlian phenomenology. His ensuing phenomenological skepticism is divided into (...) strong skepticism and categorical and gradual versions of weak skepticism. Both strands of Dennett’s criticism are then countered by analyzing the key components of Husserl’s method of phenomenological reflection: epoché and transcendental reduction, intentional analysis, eidetic variation, and intersubjective validation. Laying out the basic features of phenomenological reflection serves two purposes. First, it undermines Dennett’s methodological arguments, which are based on the unfounded assumptions that Husserl is committed to introspection, methodological solipsism, the first-person-plural presumption, and the lone-wolf approach. Second, it shows how Husserl’s own methodology can alleviate the more justified empirical worries concerning overinterpretation, underdescription, and disagreement. Finally, I argue that gradual weak skepticism is the only plausible form of phenomenological skepticism and conclude that Husserlian methodology is well-equipped to combat it. (shrink)