Page 37 - Contribution To Phenomenology

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signification, thought is descriptive when it recognizes describing as prior
to explaining, which it can do when it recognizes that knowledge of what
matters are is presupposed by attempts to account for matters in terms
of other matters. There are at least four types of explanation, namely,
teleological, aitiological, justificatory, and grounding, but, again, descrip-
tions of **what is what" logically precedes attempts to answer questions
of *Svhy."
"Descriptive" furthermore connotes an epistemology in which cognition
is beUeving that is justifiable by evidencing, "evidencing (Evidenzy being
the awareness in which objects are given in the most originary way
possible for objects of the type. If the objects are sensuously perceivable,
for one example, sensuously intuitive awareness is the most originary
awareness and recollection, expectation, feigning, and, of course, empty
or blind awareness and thinking, are less originary. For another example,
the most originary awareness of another conscious life is had on the
basis of a perceptual awareness of features of the animal's body. Like
observation in archaeology, there is then a non-linguistic representational
evidencing founded on that which is represented. Phenomenological
method is thus concerned positively with the evidencing of objects and
how evident objects are given, which evidencing can be representational
as well as presentational, so that some objects are evidenced that are not
directly, but indirectly given. Descriptive thought is not phenomenalism.
An effort is reflective (the opposite is "unreflective" or "straight-
forward") when the focus is not simply on objects but rather on ob-
jects-as-they-present-themselves (or objects-as-they-are-intended-to) and,
correlatively, intentive processes (Erlebnisse) as directed at or as intentive
to them. Once this so-called "noetico-noematic correlation" became
considerably clearer with Husserl's reflections, the work of anticipators,
beginning with Brentano and James, could be appreciated. Nevertheless,
since everyday life and most crafts and disciplines are straightforward in
their primary intention, lapses into unreflectiveness are remarkably easy,
as easy as speculation that is not undergirded by evidencing of the
matters thought about. Metadisciplinary efforts as practiced within a
discipline, i.e., intramural metadisciplinary efforts, are, like the philosophi-
cal ones, reflective with respect to the straightforward basic intention of
what they reflect upon.
An entire conscious life, even a collective one, can be a reflectively
considered an intentive process, but analysis will disclose particular
processes or process strata within life streams. One genus of stratum