Husserl's thought is revolutionary in several ways, most notably in the distinction between "natural" and "phenomenological" modes of understanding. In the former, sense-perception in correspondence with the material realm constitutes the known reality, and understanding is premised on the accuracy of the perception and the objective knowability of what is called the "real world". Phenomenological understanding strives to be rigorously "presuppositionless" by means of what Husserl calls "phenomenological reduction".Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, tr. W. R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Macmillan, 1962) 96–103, 155–67. This reduction is not conditioned but rather transcendental: in Husserl's terms, pure consciousness of absolute Being.Husserl, Ideas 194. In Husserl's work, consciousness of any given thing calls for discerning its meaning as an "intentional object".Husserl, Ideas 242–43. Such an object does not simply strike the senses, to be interpreted or misinterpreted by mental reason; it has already been selected and grasped, grasping being an etymological connotation, of percipere, the root of "perceive".Husserl, Ideas 105–109; Mark P. Drost, 'The Primacy of Perception in Husserl's Theory of Imagining,' PPR 1 (1990) 569–82. The German begreifen, cognate with English 'grip,' carries the same sense.
Husserl's thought is revolutionary in several ways, most notably in the distinction between "natural" and "phenomenological" modes of understanding. In the former, sense-perception in correspondence with the material realm constitutes the known reality, and understanding is premised on the accuracy of the perception and the objective knowability of what is called the "real world". Phenomenological understanding strives to be rigorously "presuppositionless" by means of what Husserl calls "phenomenological reduction".Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, tr. W. R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Macmillan, 1962) 96–103, 155–67. This reduction is not conditioned but rather transcendental: in Husserl's terms, pure consciousness of absolute Being.Husserl, Ideas 194. In Husserl's work, consciousness of any given thing calls for discerning its meaning as an "intentional object".Husserl, Ideas 242–43. Such an object does not simply strike the senses, to be interpreted or misinterpreted by mental reason; it has already been selected and grasped, grasping being an etymological connotation, of percipere, the root of "perceive".Husserl, Ideas 105–109; Mark P. Drost, 'The Primacy of Perception in Husserl's Theory of Imagining,' PPR 1 (1990) 569–82. The German begreifen, cognate with English 'grip,' carries the same sense.