Husserl’s early phenomenology as first philosophy (metaphysics)

Abstract

Husserl’s early phenomenology, whose greatest expression is the work Logical Investigations, from 1900/1901, intends to be a theory of knowledge that operates according to the principle of “metaphysical neutrality”. This metaphysical neutrality is usually interpreted as the delimitation of the thematic horizon of phenomenology to the domain of lived-experiences, thus excluding the transcendent thing from its field of investigation. This early phenomenology would be, therefore, a kind of “intentional psychology”. Against this interpretation, we intend to show, on the basis of Husserl’s texts from this same period, that the phenomenological theory of knowledge of the Logical Investigations is first philosophy, that is, metaphysics. The “metaphysical neutrality” is not, then, a prohibition of the talk of transcendencies, but a methodological principle so that such talk can be legitimated. With this, we intend to show that pre-transcendental phenomenology is not mere “intentional psychology”, but first philosophy (metaphysics) in the sense that Husserl understands it: ultimate science of reality.