The Negative Aspect of the Reduction — The Epoché

Abstract

Husserl begins with a clear explication of a problem which in LU remains in the background of the methodological limitation to the sphere of experiences, namely, how we can know something beyond consciousness.¹ How can perception’s claim to “give” us something transcendent be justified?² If we are to base our knowledge on an absolutely sure foundation, then we must see to it that we find an area in which this problem does not come up. As in LU, Husserl seeks this area in the sphere of experiences, but he now devotes much more attention to the method by which this area is to be found. He speaks here for the first time of “reduction,” an operation with a negative aspect and a positive aspect. Negatively it is a suspension of all judgments concerned with something transcendent, and positively it is a return to the absolute given. Husserl introduces the term ‘epoché’ for the negative aspect.