Recently I came across Master Xianglong’s article “What Is Phenomenology?”, and I thought it was terrific. This piece of his is especially suitable for readers who have some background knowledge of the history of Western philosophy but are unfamiliar with phenomenology. Teacher Zhang explains some basic concepts clearly, and between the lines he also conveys some of his own unique experience of phenomenology. It is truly a model of making the profound accessible.
After reading Teacher Zhang’s article, I too could not help wanting to write about my own understanding of phenomenology. Of course, my article can hardly be compared with Teacher Zhang’s; my main purpose is to clarify my own concepts. I will also try to write in a more “superficial” way, saying nothing at all about the technical terminology of Husserl or Heidegger.
Chinese likes to place importance on “going by the name,” and phenomenology, as the name suggests, is a field of study focused on “phenomena.” What is a phenomenon? A quick search online gives the meaning as “everything that things display outwardly and that can be perceived by people.”
The everyday meaning of phenomenon already contains two layers. First, it means “to display outwardly” — a phenomenon is something that comes “out” from the “inside” of a thing and onto its “surface.” In contrast to “essence,” a “phenomenon” is something that manifests itself outside the thing; a phenomenon is the outward expression of essence. The second layer of meaning is that a phenomenon is something that is “perceived” by people, something that can be touched by the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and touch. In this respect, “phenomenon” stands in opposition to rational cognition; it is merely sensory perception.
These two layers of meaning mutually constitute one another, because people often think that the “essence” behind phenomena is something that must be grasped through the intellect behind the senses.
The intellect is enclosed within the senses, and essence is wrapped up within phenomena, so “senses—phenomena” together constitute a curtain between human beings and things.
And thus the problem arises: philosophers seek truth, so on the one hand they must let the soul break out of the prison of the body, freeing the intellect from the interference of the senses; on the other hand they must let truth pierce the concealment of phenomena, parting the confusion of appearances in order to penetrate essence.
So whether it is the senses or phenomena, both are obstacles in the process by which people come to know essence; they are things waiting to be penetrated. This is people’s everyday understanding, the natural attitude. In this natural attitude, “senses—phenomena” are placed in parentheses, becoming some kind of mediating passage that merely needs to be traversed or passed over, but not deeply analyzed. It takes a form like this:
human being—(senses—phenomena)—essence
People only care about what essence is; as for the mediating passage, it has no constructive significance for the cognitive relation “human being—essence.” For example, we can perceive an object through the eyes, or touch it with the fingers; we can attend to the object’s heating phenomenon, or to its glowing phenomenon… But among these different ways of accessing or manifesting it, the “thing itself” remains unchanged. It exists ready-made, always there waiting for people to excavate it. Although essence always hides behind the “curtain,” it has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature or structure of the curtain. Even if we occasionally need to analyze the structure of the curtain or the properties of the senses, that is only in order to pass through them more smoothly; it has nothing to do with knowing essence.
At this point, we notice that placing “phenomenon” at the center is a remarkable thing. It is a reversal of the natural attitude, a lingering of the gaze upon the very part that normally ought to be passed straight through.
The phenomenological method is less a matter of “putting in parentheses” than, first of all, of taking the parentheses apart: opening up the originally bracketed (senses—phenomena), and conversely placing in parentheses the so-called “essence” that had originally been fixed under direct and unwavering gaze.
So phenomenology is first and foremost such a shift of the focal point of attention. One can call this shift profound, but it is not profound in the sense of being incomprehensible; it does not completely overturn the ordinary common-sense concept of “phenomenon.” One could even say that it still acknowledges a cognitive structure of “human being—senses—phenomena—essence,” except that the focal point of attention lingers on, or circles back to, the original “middle link.”
The two ends, “human being” and “essence,” are no longer regarded as fixed and ready-made existences. On the contrary, these endpoints are precisely what are obtained through abstraction, construction, and extremization. It is not that there first exists some “X,” and then, through various different means, we reach it, with it showing itself to us through different media. On the contrary, the existence of this “X” is something we summarize and extract from various modes of presentation; it is something posited by our symbolic thinking.
Therefore this X is not something already realized and completed, as if all its properties had long since been attached to X and were merely waiting for people to discover them little by little. Rather, it is less that this X is a present-at-hand thing than that it is a place of absence and blankness. This “empty place” may be continuously filled by the senses and by intention. Indeed, even this “empty place” is not ready-made and fixed; its boundaries and nature are themselves something still to be constituted.
In this way, the “essence” lurking behind the “curtain” is no longer unrelated to the nature or structure of the curtain. On the contrary, what remains after stripping away the curtain is only nothingness. The curtain itself has thickness; the structure of the curtain determines the space of blankness, and the resistance of the curtain determines the mode of manifestation. Thus the aim of phenomenology is no longer to spare no effort in piercing or tearing open the curtain; rather, it is to seek the mystery of things within the curtain itself.
So how exactly do we investigate this curtain as a medium? Of course, we need to carry out “reflection,” but such reflection can no longer proceed through some ready-made act of contemplation. For example, if we set the medium up as “Y,” and place X aside, but then establish Y in its place, what difference does that make? We will very quickly discover that with this Y as well, we still need to know it through some medium, which means we must then pursue some “Z”…
Of course, these investigations into Y and Z are not meaningless. For example, things are displayed through instruments, and we can further study the structure of the instruments; images are observed through vision, and we can further study the structure of the eyeball. Such studies are certainly meaningful, yet they cannot help us directly understand the original phenomenon. For instance, however painstakingly we explain to a blind person the structure of the eyeball, does that blind person thereby understand vision? The eyeball is indeed one of the conditions for visual phenomena, but what role the eyeball actually plays is difficult to understand if we simply take the eyeball as a ready-made object and dissect it for study.
The key point is that the eyeball as a mediating condition, and the eyeball as an objective object, no longer play the same role; the gap between them is like the difference between a corpse and a living body.
This is not to say that “anatomy of the dead body” is utterly meaningless for understanding the “living body.” The crucial point is that however much objective research you do, it must be brought into some transcending perspective in order to be synthesized. For example, only for those who already have some prior understanding of the significance of the eyeball for vision can the dissection of the eyeball be understood as an analysis of vision.
Studying ready-made objective objects is the task of the specific sciences; however, merely bringing together analyses of various X, Y, and Z does not automatically yield an understanding of phenomena such as “seeing X through Y.” To break a certain phenomenon down into relatively independent links such as X, Y, and Z, or to synthesize the separate studies of X, Y, and Z, is precisely the phenomenological perspective.
Phenomenology is not “anatomy of the dead body,” but rather the study of the living body as living body. Phenomenology studies life itself.
Yet how is it possible for us not to take the eyeball apart as an objective sphere, but instead to understand its significance within the complete and living activity of vision? We need to engage in some non-objectifying, or rather pre-objectifying, thinking about visual phenomena. In other words, we cannot separate the eyeball from the activity of seeing; rather, we must carry out reflection while preserving the “activity” of vision itself, and only then can we appreciate the constitutive significance of the eyeball within the whole “activity.”
This is what Teacher Zhang Xianglong means by “warm thought that knows while doing, not cold thought that knows only after doing.” Grasping the structure of seeing in the activity of seeing. The reason this “warm thought” is possible is that human thinking is not originally “single-threaded” like a computer program. At the very moment of “seeing,” human consciousness is not originally single-mindedly and without reserve rushing straight toward the target object. Even in the most focused and absorbed activity, human consciousness contains “redundancy” — what Teacher Zhang calls an accompanying consciousness with “surplus” or overflow. But the word “surplus” sounds too positive. In fact, this surplus often does manifest itself as interference and noise, as something to be eliminated in ready-made cognition. For example, when we stare at something, we are always unable to avoid seeing its “background” entirely. We can “turn a blind eye” to the insignificant parts of the visual field, but they still stubbornly remain within it, and may at any moment distract you and interrupt you.
If you are truly distracted, if your focus shifts and you turn your attention to another thing, then all this means is that you have moved from the ready-made X to Y. The problem is that more often, “distraction” exists only as a possibility. Those things that may distract you are already present in your field of vision before you have actually been distracted; they do not merely take effect when you are distracted, but also when you are fully concentrated. The “background” through which something can appear may, before it usurps the foreground and draws away your gaze, actually be playing a positive role in your concentration. The background sets off the theme; it is precisely the proper background that makes a particular object become the focus.
The existence of the eyeball is also the background of visual phenomena. While we are “seeing,” we are also always sensing the existence of the eyeball, and so when vision becomes unclear, that is, when our eyes become “blurred,” we rub our eyes, consciously or unconsciously. “Brighten your eyes,” “open your eyes wide,” “stare without blinking,” “not blink an eye”… These ways of focusing on visual objects are precisely ways of controlling and adjusting the eyes, which suggests that we not only notice our eyes when we are distracted and not looking, but also, while carrying out visual activity with concentration, are always paying some attention to the eyes themselves.
Only in this eyeball-awareness of visual phenomena, as a kind of redundant consciousness, can we truly understand the role the eyeball plays in visual activity. Of course, this redundant consciousness does not include only the eyeball; it includes rich structures and layers.
When we “see an object,” we become conscious of that object, but the consciousness contained in this visual phenomenon goes beyond that object. We are not only conscious of the structure of that object, but also of the various structures accompanying the activity of “seeing.” Traditional philosophy regards these redundant consciousnesses as interference and excludes them, whereas phenomenology tries to seize hold of them. They are not troublemakers but “surplus,” a treasure waiting to be excavated.
Let me stop here for now. What I have actually been talking about above is the concept of “intentionality,” and I still have not gotten to “eidetic intuition.” I’ll talk about that next time.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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