Hanne Jacobs

In the paragraphs immediately following the introduction of the method of phenomenological epoché (§§34-46) in Ideas, rather than applying this new method, Husserl provides a series of psychological descriptions on the basis of psychological reflection. This is surprising for at least two reasons. First, since Husserl has already distinguished phenomenology from psychology (both empirical and eidetic), it is not clear why he would engage in psychological reflection and description at this point in the book. Further, the psychological descriptions that Husserl provides in these paragraphs are of consciousness — specifically, of our consciousness of something. But, as Husserl indicates at several points in the first book of Ideas, and as he more fully develops in the 1912 pencil manuscript of the second book of Ideas, the object of psychology is, strictly speaking, not consciousness but the soul (Seele) considered as reality (Realität). In this chapter, I first develop how these two interpretative difficulties can be overcome if we consider the overall aim of the second chapter — namely, to establish that consciousness has its own kind of being and hence essence. Then, I elucidate how exactly Husserl establishes this in this chapter and show how it entails a radical rethinking of the distinction between and relation of consciousness and world.