Course:MDIA300/Phenomenology

Overview

Phenomenology is a philosophical movement that looks to our direct, conscious experience as a source of knowledge, setting aside abstract rationalizations and scientific assumptions to examine the world directly as it appears to us through our senses. It explores how things in the world disclose themselves; or become known to us, whether through sight, touch, sound, etc.

A grounding for many fields of research and philosophical movements, the study of Phenomenology centres knowledge in the subjective experience, often as a complement to scientific inquiry.

Key Thinkers:

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

An Austrian-German Philosopher and Mathematician, Husserl first established the school of Phenomenology with his 1913 work The Idea of Phenomenology. Approaching philosophy as a mathematician, he sought to find a grounding for mathematics through logic, and later sought to discover a structure underlying conscious experience by removing all of the presuppositions we apply to our direct experience.

Husserl questioned the supposed objectivity of his contemporary fields of philosophy, which grounded knowledge in history (historicism) or psychological facts (psychologism). He argued instead that all knowledge is necessarily mediated through our subjective conscious experience. He questioned the presumptive tendency of science to imagine the world as an ideal and pure third person reality hidden by the limits of our perception, on the grounds that no human being can truly experience or know reality this way and our perception is the only way we ever attain knowledge.

Husserl’s key contributions:

Intentionality, or the observation that all conscious experience must be ‘directed at’ something, such as the thing someone is looking at or thinking about.

Phenomenological reduction/Bracketing/Epoché: The procedure of suspending common-sense rationalizations and scientific assumptions about reality to instead see the world directly as it discloses itself to the senses, free from presuppositions.

Eidetic variation: The procedure of isolating the qualities of an object that make it what it is. As in, what are the specific traits of an object that, if they were removed, would make us no longer consider that object to be what it is, or part of the same category.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

German Philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote on a broad scope of philosophical matters, from phenomenology to metaphysics, existentialism and ontology. He is widely considered one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. With his first and possibly most influential work, Being and Time (1927), he sought to deeply investigate the concept of being, and what it even means for something “to exist.” His work is thought to have influenced whole swathes of thinkers including Hanna Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Simone De Beauvoir, The Frankfurt School, The Kyoto School, among many others. His work is likely so broad-reaching in its influence because of its focus on the most broad and fundamental aspects of existence itself. Heidegger is known for his often esoteric use of language and wide array of unique terms he constructed for his philosophy. Like Husserl, he argued that a “prescientific” understanding supersedes rational abstract thought.

Heidegger's key contributions:

Dasein: The specific type of being experienced by humans.

Understanding: Our natural, intuitive ability to simply go about the basic rhythms and tasks of daily life without questioning everything around us, which to Heidegger supersedes theoretical thought.

Being-in-the-world: To be as a human is to exist in a field of social context that gives meaning to our actions.

Discourse: “The articulation of the world into recognizable, communicable patterns of meaning.”

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Known better for his work in existentialism and marxism, along with his works outside of philosophy in theatre, literature, criticism and activism, Jean-Paul Sartre was also a prominent phenomenologist. Sartre engaged in phenomenological investigations including a study of imagination, but often went against many of Husserl’s ideas like an underlying structure for consciousness, and forwent practices like eidetic variation and phenomenological reproduction. His contribution to phenomenology is principally to retool it to work within his existentialist framework.

Sartre's key contributions:

Being-for-itself: The type of existence specific to consciousness; one constantly reflecting, looking beyond itself and toward what it is not.

Consciousness as nothingness: Contrary to Husserl’s idea of a necessary structure underlying consciousness, Sartre views consciousness as a lack, a void, or a vacuum open for choice and possibility.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)

French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a crucial figure in the development of Husserl's phenomenology. His major contribution was his centering of phenomenology in perception, and how it works in communication with the world around us. Merleau-Ponty's aim was to engage with science as to understand its strengths and weaknesses, and to construct a mode of understanding apart from idealism, intellectualism and empiricism.

Merleau-Ponty's main contributions:

Flesh: The idea that the way we perceive the world is exclusively through the surfaces or outer 'skin' of objects. This world of surfaces constitutes a 'flesh' that connects the things being perceived to the person/thing perceiving.

Chiasm: Built upon the idea of the flesh, the Chiasm is the intertwined nature of the perceiver and the perceived flesh, which each affect and shape the other in the process of perception.

Relevance to Media Studies

The work of phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty are referenced in Tim Ingold's Making, and monumental philosophers like Husserl and Heidegger form a foundation of philosophical thought often drawn from by media theorists. Phenomenology is centered in an investigation of how our world is mediated by our senses and our conscious experience. The phenomenological process is one that critically analyzes the presuppositions that mediate our base understanding of the world.When investigating a subject as a media theorist, the approach of phenomenology offers many crucial insights that we often take for granted regarding the most basic assumptions that mediate our perception and experience. Many of the concepts brought forth by these theorists are central to understanding how we shape media, and in turn media shape us.

Sources

Smith, David Woodruff, "Phenomenology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenomenology/>.

Zahavi, Dan, "Edmund Husserl", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), forthcoming URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/husserl/>.

Landgrebe, Ludwig M.. "Edmund Husserl". Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Apr. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edmund-Husserl. Accessed 16 November 2025.

Wrathall, Mark, "Martin Heidegger", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2025/entries/heidegger/>.

Reynolds, Jack and Pierre-Jean Renaudie, "Jean-Paul Sartre", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/sartre/>.

Jean-Paul Sartre – Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Sun. 16 Nov 2025. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1964/sartre/biographical/>

Toadvine, Ted, "Maurice Merleau-Ponty", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/merleau-ponty/>.

Britannica Editors. "Maurice Merleau-Ponty". Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 Apr. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maurice-Merleau-Ponty. Accessed 16 November 2025.