Is phenomenology metaphysics?
Is phenomenology metaphysics?

Summary/Abstract: The question whether phenomenology is metaphysics is an extremely difficult one. The most common expression used to refer to metaphysics is ‘the fundamental philosophical science concerned with being as being’. Metaphysics is the first philosophy in the order of things, and being. Aristotelian "first philosophy" was supposed to precede "second philosophy", i.e. physics. Husserl's phenomenology, being a science about the essence of pure consciousness, was supposed to precede eidetic formal sciences, eidetic material sciences and all sciences concerning facts, including metaphysics. Thus, in his declarations, Husserl distinguished phenomenology, including transcendental phenomenology, from metaphysics. Husserl claimed that the question about the reason for being, its ratio, should not be the starting point in philosophy. In his opinion, the question that ought to introduce one to philosophy is the question of how every sense is constituted in consciousness, in subjectivity, or in the subject. Thus, Husserl's phenomenology, including transcendental phenomenology, is not metaphysics understood as the study of being qua being. It is not a contemplation of being, but a meditation on processes involved in consciousness, in which the sense of being is constituted.

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