The Resistance of the Given and its Demythologization in Husserl’s Phenomenology

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Back to issue: Phänomenologische Forschungen 2021-2

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The objective of this paper is to reconstruct Husserl’s two-pronged approach of sensory givenness. On the one hand, the phenomenological focus on intentional consciousness implies a virulent criticismof the positivistic myth of the sensory given. On the other hand, there is also a positive appeal to sensory givenness in phenomenology, without which phenomenology would not be worthy of its name and would, ultimately, be nothing other than a form of neo-Kantianism. In the context of transcendental genetic phenomenology, Husserl manages to rehabilitate sensory givenness in a reduced, viz. demythologized form. This reconstruction of Husserl’s ambivalent reference to the given can help phenomenology defend itself against some actual trends, which tend to reduce it to phenomenalismor to conceptualism.