Epoche and Experience: Metaphors and Terms

The article analyzes the way of introducing the terms “epoche” and “phenomenological reduction” denoting the basic procedure of the phenomenological method. Husserl's attempt to present epoche as a special kind of experience is considered. The basic presupposition of the research is the difference between terms and experience, as well as terms and metaphors. The introduced terms with other terms that directly refer to intersubjectively available experience - “doubt” and “attempt at doubt” - are correlated. The distinction is made between terms and metaphors, or images (“put out of action”, “disconnexion”, “bracketing”, etc.), which are usually used to characterize the basic procedures of the phenomenological method. This kind of metaphors is seen as an obstacle to distinguishing between a term (“concept”) and the experience denoted by the term. The uncritical use of metaphors results, as a rule, in the interpretation of the meanings of terms in the commentary literature, rather than in the analysis of the experience they indicate. Descartes' and Husserl's different ways of transforming the experience of doubt for methodological purposes are considered. The introduction of “epoche” as the basis of the phenomenological method is assessed as an important moment on Husserl's way to phenomenological transcendentalism, with its characteristic tendency to go beyond experience within experience itself. Just like the Cartesian Ego in the first edition of Logical Investigations turns out to be not “completely empirical” in Husserl, epoche appears as a certain mixture of the natural and the artificial. The transformation of the experience of doubt into an attempt of doubt serves as the main means of presenting epoche as a quasi-experience, as the als ob experience. What Husserl designated as epoche or phenomenological reduction contains the hidden elements of doubt as real experience; however, Husserl ultimately rejects these elements, “extracting” the procedure of epoche from the experience of doubt and transforming experience into a transcendental condition of experience.

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