ness, the way they appear to consciousness, and the conditions for appearance in consciousness.
Husserl coined the maxim ”We will go back to the things themselves” (1901:7),^5 and Heidegger
pointed out that a phenomenon is ”that which shows itself in itself” (Heidegger 1962:51, Ihde
1977:29).
To go ”to the things themselves” does not mean to study things as isolated objects in the world,
separated from the the observer’s activity. On the contrary, it means to investigate the relationship
between the object and the process that allows the appearance of the object in consciousness.
Husserl calls this investigation ”leading back” to the way the world manifests itself to us, and terms it
”phenomenological reduction” (Husserl 1970). Husserl refers to the original meaning of the latin word
”re-ducere”, to ”lead back” (Gallagher & Zahavi 2008:25). It is important to keep this meaning of ”re-
duction” in mind, because it is different from a more current meaning of the word, ”to diminish”.
In Husserl’s terms, the object of experience is called noema, the process of experience is called no-
esis, and the phenomenological reduction investigates the correlation between noema and noesis.
Directing our consciousness toward the world is an active process, which constitutes the objects in
the world. This does not mean that consciousness creates or constructs the object. Nor is conscious
experience a passive reception of the object. Constitution is a process which permits the object to
appear and present itself. Zahavi clarifies this process with reference to Husserl and Heidegger:
”Constitution must be understood as a process that allows for manifestation and signifi-
cation, that is, it must be understood as a process that permits that which is constituted
to appear, unfold, articulate, and show itself as what it is. As Heidegger was to observe:
”’Constituting’ does not mean producing in the sense of making and fabricating; it means
letting the entity be seen in its objectivity.” (Zahavi 2003b:73)The process of constitution discloses a structure of consciousness which can be considered in-
variant, that is, underlying every kind of conscious perception. Merleau-Ponty states that the main
achievement of phenomenology is to establish this unbreakable connection between conscious-
ness and the world, ”to have united extreme subjectivism and extreme objectivism” (Merleau-Ponty
2002:XXII, Thøgersen 2004:90). In other words, the distinction between ”subject” and ”object” taken
for granted in the natural attitude is suspended in the phenomenological attitude.
- Perform phenomenological variations
It is the aim of phenomenology to describe how the phenomena appear to consciousness, not to
explain them. The way to an adequate description is to observe the phenomenon again and again
until it discloses its essential features. The appropriate method is ”phenomenological variation” (Ihde
1976:29-32, 1977:34-35, Thøgersen 2004:76). Husserl proposed the use of ”free imaginary varia-
tion” to distinguish between accidental and essential properties of an object. However, he did not
establish this approach as a proper method, and it cannot be considered a truly distinctive feature of
his phenomenology (Zahavi 2003b:39, Ferrara 1991:66).
An operational approach is the method of perceptual variation (Merleau-Ponty 2002:268-271,
Ihde 1976:30-31). In visual perception, it is an easy task to perform variations by changing the angle
of observation or changing the visual focus from an object to a background. Similarly, in auditory
perception it is possible to change focus from a sounding object to the background of environmental
sound.
Perceptual variation reveals an invariant structure of consciousness, which underlies every
kind of perception, the relationship between focus and fringe, or center and periphery (Ihde 1976:37-
39). It is possible to perform perceptual variations in any music listening situation, including the
unique event of a live performance. However, elaborate description of music as heard requires re-
peated listening to recorded music.
5 ”Wir wollen auf die ’Sachen selbst’ zurückgehen.” Husserl: Logische Untersuchungen Zweiter Theil (1901), p. 7.