Paul Adrian C.

Espino
M.A. Philosophy
Phenomenology

“Silently the senses abandon their defenses”, is one of the lines from the lyrics of
the song Music of the Night. The Music of the Night is from the opus of Andrew Llloyd
Weber’s Phantom of the Opera. The empiricists tell us that all our knowledge comes
from our senses. I have heard one of their adages, “Nothing is in the intellect unless it
comes from the senses” during our introductory classes in philosophy. Back then, as far
as I can remember I was quite convinced by the empiricists’ claim. However, what
convinced me that their claim can be questioned was the argument that there are ideas
that cannot be known solely through the senses. Ideas that can only be approached but
cannot be fully grasped by reason. Immanuel Kant in the Preface of his Critique of Pure
Reason has this to say,

“Our reason has this peculiar fate that in reference to one class of its
knowledge it is always troubled with questions which cannot be ignored because
they spring from the very nature of reason, and which cannot be answered
because they transcend the powers of human reason.”

Kant was trying to establish Metaphysics as a Science and in so doing came

across with Ideas that cannot be known through the senses. Ideas such as God,
freedom and immortality. Ideas and concepts about God, Freedom and Immortality
troubles us, but we cannot answer them fully. Some questions that arise from
discoursing about concepts are, Can we really know God? Up to what extent can we
exercise our freedom? How do we know that the soul is Immortal? The senses might
give us answers but it cannot fully explain such concepts. I can know God, for example
through his handiwork. I can see that others are deprived of their freedom to roam
around, because they are imprisoned. I can make sense of immortality through its
opposite, mortality. I can see only a glimpse. I can only make sense of the ideas of God,
freedom and immortality of how it appears to me, and not as they really are. In Kantian
terms, I can only grasp the phenomena and not the noumena.

It is established that I can only know something as it appears to me. There is still
another concern. My ideas about God, freedom and immortality are situated in a certain
context. I cannot impose my lived experience of these ‘realities’ to someone and force
them to believe that this is the truth. In a sense, we are biased individuals, we see,
judge and act according to preconceived opinions.
The next concern is what can we do with our biases? Edmund Husserl suggests
that we bracket it out. He termed it as Epoche from the greek term, epikein, which
means to suspend or to put on hold. We suspend our biases, preconceived ideas, even
the real world so as to arrive at essences or eidos. Thus, the method of Husserl is also
called eidetic reduction. As he calls for a “return to the things themselves”, he was not
merely referring to the material and immaterial objects, he was pointing towards the
essences.

Another term for Eidetic reduction is Transcendental Phenomenological

reduction. Richard Schmitt made sense of the term by saying, “It seems reasonable
therefore to interpret the transcendental phenomenological reduction as a
phenomenological description of the transition from a non-reflective attitude to a
reflective attitude, albeit a reflective attitude of a particular kind” (Schmitt, 1960). A non-
reflective attitude makes us act according to our biases, a reflective attitude instead tries
to make us aware that we act as such. A reflective attitude starts with awareness. IIf
we continue practicing it, we might be led towards becoming more open minded and
welcoming, towards ourselves and others.