Define the philosophy of phenonenology.

Phenomenology is the study of how we perceive the world;
thus, how we perceive the phenomena in the world. If each of us perceives the world a
bit differently, since we are all subjective, the goal of phenomenology is to understand
the structure and processes of consciousness in order to make more objective,
generalized theories of how we all perceive the
world.

Phenomenology supposes that consciousness has
intentionality or “aboutness.” This means that consciousness is about something. So, if
consciousness is about a tree, the tree is the intentional object and the tree is
constituted (which is the phenomenologist’s way of saying we perceive) via different
methods: perception, memory. Phenomenology is the study of how we experience the world,
so it is not about things, but about how we apprehend
things.

The first main figure in phenomenology is Husserl,
who claimed that consciousness is not in the mind, but it is about the object. So,
consciousness is a kind of reaching out to experience things. Rather than conscious
experience occurring only in the mind, the phenomenologist believes conscious experience
occurs between the mind and the world; an
INTERACTION.

Think of conscious experience
as an arrow directed outwardly from yourself. Things you experience are your intentional
objects. You recognize other subjects (people) as objects and subjects who, like you,
are perceiver. Phenomenologists call this
empathy.

Likewise, you recognize your own body as a
subject, your ‘self” as well as an object. If you touch your right hand with your left,
your are touching an object and being touched by a subject.