exhausted all possibilities. His exclusively theoretical attitude, i.e. his absolutization of logic, also cannot exhaust them. His dispute with phenomenology does not get at its authentic sphere of problems at all.
This applies quite generally to all previous criticisms of phenomenology. Their purported force derives from a preconceived position, whether this be the standpoint of transcendental philosophy, empirical psychology, or post-Hegelianism. The fundamental demand of phenomenology to bracket all standpoints is everywhere overlooked. This is decisive proof that the authentic sense of phenomenology is not understood. When the proper fundamental attitude to phenomenology is lacking, all objections to it, however sophisticated and significant they might be, are fallacious.
§ 20. Phenomenological Disclosure of the Sphere of Lived Experience
The fundamental methodological problem of phenomenology, the question concerning the scientific disclosure of the sphere of lived experience, itself stands under phenomenology's 'principle of principles'. Husserl formulates it thus: 'Everything that presents itself ... originarily in "intuition" is to be taken simply ... as it gives itself.'1 This is the 'principle of principles', in regard to which 'no conceivable theory can lead us astray'.2 If by a principle one were to understand a theoretical proposition, this designation would not be fitting. However, that Husserl speaks of a principle of principles, of something that precedes all principles, in regard to which no theory can lead us astray, already shows (although Husserl does not explicitly say so) that it does not have a theoretical character. [110] It is the primordial intention of genuine life, the primordial bearing of life-experience and life as such, the absolute sympathy with life that is identical with life-experience. To begin with, i.e. coming along this path from the theoretical
1 Husserl, Ideen, Vol. I, p. 43.
2 ibid. p. 44.