Editing Phenomenology (philosophy) (section)

====''Ideas'' (1913)====
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In 1913, Husserl published ''Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology''. In this work, he presents phenomenology as a form of "[[transcendental idealism]]". Although Husserl claimed to have always been a transcendental idealist, this was not how many of his admirers had interpreted the ''Logical Investigations'', and some were alienated as a result.{{sfn|Smith|2023|loc=§1}}

This work introduced distinctions between the act of consciousness (''[[Noesis (phenomenology)|noesis]]'') and the phenomena at which it is directed (the ''[[noema]]ta''). ''Noetic'' refers to the intentional act of consciousness (believing, willing, etc.). ''Noematic'' refers to the object or content ''(noema)'', which appears in the noetic acts (the believed, wanted, hated, loved, etc.).{{sfn|Smith|2023|loc=§3.c}}

What is observed is not the object as it is in itself, but how and inasmuch it is given in the intentional acts. Knowledge of [[essence]]s would only be possible by "[[Bracketing (phenomenology)|bracketing]]" all assumptions about the existence of an external world and the inessential (subjective) aspects of how the object is concretely given to us. This ''phenomenological reduction'' is the second stage of Husserl's procedure of [[epoché]]. That which is essential is then determined by the imaginative work of ''eidetic variation'', which is a method for clarifying the features of a thing without which it would not be what it is.{{sfn|Gallagher|Zahavi|2021|pages=23–30}}

Husserl concentrated more on the ideal, essential structures of consciousness. As he wanted to exclude any hypothesis on the existence of external objects, he introduced the method of phenomenological reduction to eliminate them. What was left over was the pure [[Transcendence (philosophy)|transcendental]] ego, as opposed to the concrete empirical ego.

'''Transcendental phenomenology'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> is the study of the essential structures that are left in pure consciousness: this amounts in practice to the study of the noemata and the relations among them.