Discipline Filosofiche

The phenomenological quest beyond consciousness

Vol. 33 (2)

Andrea Altobrando, Alice Pugliese (ed)

Phenomenology, understood as a philosophical tradition, begins as an analysis of consciousness and what one is conscious of. This approach undoubtedly derives from the Brentanian distinction between psychic and physical phenomena. Psychic phenomena are characterized by an immanent “referring to something else.” The modalities of referring to something else and the ontological and epistemological problems associated with this have been the subject of study and debate since the time of Brentano’s earliest students and have, for the most part, occupied both philosophers who are recognized as belonging to the phenomenological tradition and analytic philosophers.