Abstract
AN article under this title by H. Margenau appears in the current issue of Philosophy and Phenomeno-logical Research. It sets out to expound to the student of physics the main concepts of Husserl and his school; in addition, some consideration is given to the point of view which a physicist interested in methodology might take about the doctrines of phenomenology. At the outset the author is at pains to stress the special meaning attached to the word 'phenomenology'. Far from representing something superficial (that is, associated with 'mere' phenomena) this discipline is the most all-embracing matrix in which, so to say, all experience can be embedded. The paper is in three sections: (1) general thesis of phenomenology; (2) epistemology of physics; (3) the notion of certainty in phenomenology. It seems likely that, of the two types of facts recognized by Husserl, contingent and necessary, the latter are being gradually worn down by a process of attrition as scientific knowledge progresses. Thus a natural question to ask is whether or not the tendency will stop before all eidetic (that is, form-like) truth has become contingent. To Husserl, for example, Euclidean geometry appeared "immediately evident and therefore indubitably correct". Here indeed is an example of the rapid strides made by modern science since his day towards contingency. The caution towards ontological problems which phenomenology is forced to observe wrung from Husserl his famous "epoché"or abstinence, sometimes called bracketing. It implies, even if it does not absolutely require, the waiving of all existential judgments.
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Phenomenology and Physics. Nature 155, 693 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155693a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155693a0