Political Culture

Abstract

Through the central placement of the magic word “phenomenon,” edmund husserl was able to open new perspectives that would lead out of the sterile deadlock into which the philosophical schools vying for recognition in the nineteenth century had fallen. This is true despite the word’s unclarified status and seductive power, of which Husserl (1921: 244) himself was fully aware. He openly admits that the word was an invitation to make reference to experiences and the objects of appearance and to commingle them. This especially applies to the “images of productive phantasy” (he mentions paintings, statues, poems), which exist as acts with their intentional content, while the experienced color and formal content are genuine, and not merely supposed.