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TRANSCENDENTAL EXPERIENCE AS A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Abstract
In my article I would like to discuss a topic concerning the idea of mental experience as an experiment in the transcendental philosophy. One of the main problems of the humanities is that one can see a big difference between two branches of knowledge: human sciences and «exact» sciences. The main difference consists in the fact that the experimental data of the exact sciences can be verified by other researchers, but mental data in the mind of one researcher in humanities cannot be repeated in the mind of another. It allows for the skeptics to say that human sciences and especially philosophy cannot be real sciences. In opposition to this, the contemporary German philosopher Lambert Wiesing asserts that in the field of transcendental philosophy we do have something similar to experience in experimental sciences. It is called the «eidetic variation» (eidetische Variation). Three principles of the method are of great value. They are: self-reflection, phantasy, and self-clarification. In my article I am going firstly to clarify the principles of «eidetic variation» in Husserl's phenomenology, and secondly to relate this to the methods found in German transcendental Idealism. I see three interpretations of the term «eidetic variation»: as a synonym of the transcendental reduction, as establishing the eidos of a thing and the transcendental ego itself, and as something that can be held in a phantasy. The same method is used in German idealism (by Fichte for example). The main outcome of my paper should be, that if we accept an «eidetic variation» as a transcendental method, we can explain, or at least have an opportunity to build the abstract category and understand such abstract items as beauty as well as other general philosophical notions.

Key words
Phenomenology of Husserl, German Idealism, Fichte, eidetic variation, transcendental ego, transcendental reduction.

References

• Fichte, J. G. (1967). Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.
• Husserl, E. (1968). Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925 (Hua IX). Den Haag: Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1973). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). Den Haag: Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft. Mit ergänzenden Texten (Hua XVII). Den Haag: Nijhoff.
• Wiesing, L. (2012). Phänomenologische und experimentelle Ästhetik. In J. Früchtl, & M. Moog-Grünewald (Eds.), Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.