As philosophers speak, they think that there are things whicht they can see and speak about as philosophers. But what are these things? And what is the general character of the philosopher's statements? How can we find out whether they are true? If, as is widely agreed, the philosopher does not rely on empirical research, in which direction ought we to look for the evidence to support philosophical statements? Husserl's transcendental-phenomenological reduction, we propose to show, can best be understood as (...) an attempt to indicate the nature and direction of the specifically philosophical concern. The reduction, as he understood it, determines the domain of philosophical research, the character of philosophical statements, and the direction in which we can look for evidence to support such statements. In this paper we shall concentrate on the Ideas, the work which Husserl published in 1913 as a general introduction to phenomenology. (shrink)

...In what follows I lay out Husserl's theory of epistemic justification as he sketches it in Part IV of 'Ideas 1', especially in the section he appropriately titles the "Phenomenology of Reason," understood here to present a phenomenological analysis of how reason is given, namely, how reason manifests itself in conscious life. My claim is that Husserl's "phenomenology of reason," by clarifying the ways in which the "legitimizations of reason" take place can be ultimately understood as a theory of epistemic (...) justification. The theory of epistemic justification discused here is a phenomenological account of the process whereby the thinking subject comes to regards particular beliefs as true and can give reasons to support this claim. (shrink)