Empathy,Phenomenological Reduction,and Reflexivity: Foundations of Phenomenological Research

Abstract

Do our former experiences represent an obstacle to truly understanding another person? This study explores the phenomenological foundation that positions former experiences not as obstacles, but as essential preconditions for understanding the world and others. Drawing on Husserl’s theory of apperception, passive synthesis, intersubjectivity and empathy, I examine how past experiences inform both our present experiences and anticipated future, thereby enriching our perception and interpretation of others and helping us perceive exceedingly fine-grained patterns of meaning. Our past experiences do not rigidly determine our future actions but instead create a background of possibilities, like a horizon we carry with us, that can be continuously adjusted and fine-tuned as new situations arise. Husserl’s, and Stein’s theory of empathy and intersubjectivity further opens up the possibility for a direct perception of the other’s subjectivity. This is nuanced and enriched by Merleau-Ponty’s description of the intertwining or coupling of our constitutive consciousnesses, which illustrates not only how our embodied expressions convey emotions and intentions directly but also how we engage in a mutual embodied dialogue. The phenomenological reduction offers a method to ensure our openness towards others and the world, and to grasp how meanings are constituted and shared within our lifeworld.

Introduction

In qualitative research, the former experiences of researchers are often portrayed as obstacles that hinder a true perception and description of the study participants’ experiences (e.g., Smith et al., 2022). The central critique that interpretive phenomenology poses Husserlian phenomenology is that description is never free from interpretation. This is based on the insight that understanding is inherently interpretive, and shaped by our historical, cultural, and linguistic context, which influences how phenomena reveal themselves to us (Heidegger, 1927/1996). In other words, a pure presuppositionless account of experience is impossible. The phenomenological reduction has therefore been portrayed by interpretive phenomenologists as naïve, unrealistic or even misleading. This critique has been especially evident and longstanding within phenomenological psychology (Giorgi, 1992) as well as in the field in which I specialize, perinatal and maternal mental health.

This article discusses how Husserl’s (1931/1973, 1913/1983, 1952/1990, 2001) concepts of apperception, passive synthesis, empathy and intersubjectivity challenge this superficial and misconstrued interpretation of his phenomenology. Husserl’s analysis of apperception, that is, the way perception always intends more than what is presently given, relates to his descriptions of passive synthesis, which are our pre-reflective structures that shape experience before explicit thought. Furthermore, his analysis of time perception reveals how our past experiences inform both our present experiences and the anticipated future. Husserl underscores that our anticipations are open, creating a flexible horizon of possibilities that can be continuously adjusted and fine-tuned. Empathy, as described by Husserl and further developed by Edith Stein (1917/1989), provides direct, pre-reflective access to the experiences of others. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962, 1964/1968) descriptions of intersubjectivity in The Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible depict the intertwining of our constitutive consciousnesses. He emphasized how embodied expressions directly convey emotions and intentions, facilitating a mutual embodied dialogue.

Husserlian phenomenology regards former experiences not as obstacles or distortions, but as essential preconditions for understanding the world and others (Husserl, 2001). Husserl rejected naïve objectivism, arguing that our past experiences make the world intelligible; without them, the world would be utterly meaningless. By suspending our natural attitude through phenomenological reduction, which involves setting aside our belief that things exist exactly as we perceive them independently of us, we can study how meanings are constituted and shared within our lifeworld. These phenomenological insights not only deepen our grasp of human experiences but also provide a robust framework for studying meanings within the context of human interaction and perception.

First, this paper explores the essence of our intentional consciousness and how we institute sense in or give meaning to the world through apperception, with particular attention to the central role of time consciousness in shaping our experience of enduring objects and other people. Through the concept of passive synthesis and intentional association, the paper reveals how our history and former experiences emanate habits and horizons of anticipated meanings that may be verified or adjusted. Next, the paper examines the concepts of empathy and intersubjectivity, highlighting how these phenomenological insights enable a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of others. It considers how the intertwining of our constitutive consciousnesses fosters a mutual dialogue and enriches our perception of the world. Finally, the paper explains how these insights make the phenomenological reduction both feasible and philosophical defensible, and the inherent role of reflexivity.

This paper aims to provide key phenomenological insights into the possibility of knowing others, offering valuable guidance for researchers using a phenomenological perspective and method in the field.

Instituting Sense: Apperception and Intentional Association

Husserlian phenomenology implies that the research participant is an intentional agent and directs the researcher’s focus not only on what (noema) the participant is saying but also on how (noesis) they constitute or give meaning to their lifeworld. It reminds us that what is absent or implicitly present in the participants’ experience can be as significant as what is explicitly expressed in understanding a phenomenon.

One of the most basic tenets in phenomenology is that consciousness is intentional, which means that consciousness is always directed towards something other than itself (Husserl, 1913/1983). For analytical purposes, Husserl separated between the pure ego, its conscious acts (noesis) and the object (noema) consciousness is directed towards, which can be immanent (memories, dreams, hallucinations) or external (existing in time and space). The pure ego, according to Husserl, is the unchanging core, or center of consciousness that is always present. The pure ego, noesis, and noema are, in their essence, inseparable. The ego performs the acts, and these acts intends an object in a specific way.

Our intentional consciousness reveals to us a world already filled with meaning, it opens the world and makes it “real” for us. How can it be that worldly meanings, or essences, are always already there for us? Husserl (2001) used the term “apperception” when explaining how consciousness constitutes meaning. Apperception is the process by which we apprehend something as having meaning, or an identity. Even though only one side of an object is given at any moment, I experience the object as a whole by intending the sides that are hidden. These hidden sides are given as absences, meaning that I can see more than what meets the eye (Sokolowski, 1999). Our former experience with similar objects guides these apperceptions. For example, when you see an apple on a table, you only see the front side, but you immediately experience it as a whole, solid object, with a hidden back, top, and bottom. You also grasp it as a familiar, edible thing with color, texture, and taste, even though much of it is not directly seen. According to Husserl (1931/1973), an object cannot be merely “there” for the experiencing subject; it appears only as constituted by consciousness through its process of becoming. A key aspect of this process is his analysis of time perception which shows how our experience of lasting objects and other people is shaped through retentions (our sense of the immediate past), primal impressions (the present moment), and protensions (our orientation towards the future). The ongoing sense of an object, its steady presence for us, comes from the way past, present, and future moments flow together in our experience of time (Husserl, 2001, pp. 606-607). Importantly, a multitude of future possibilities “leaps” from the present experience, and new experiences may verify, fulfill, or modify these possibilities: “Evidence refer us to infinities of evidences relating to the same object, wherever they make their object itself-given with an essentially one-sidedness” (Husserl, 1931/1973, pp. 61-62). This is possible because our intentional acts continually associate their past and present experiences. This continuously developing meaning making or sense-giving structure is a fundamental part of our embodied consciousness, without which the world would be meaningless. Husserl describes that our experiences become a part of us, “Every evidence ‘set’s up’ or institutes for me an abiding possession. I can always return to the itself-beheld actuality, in a series of new evidence as restitutions of the first evidence” (p. 60).

Husserl (2001) underscored that our perceptual consciousness is not an empty box but rather has a “sense-giving structure” that through experience becomes exceedingly subtle and finetuned (p. 606). The development of the constituted objects in our lifeworld is not accidental, rather it depends on certain a priori eidetic perceptual laws (p. 80). These eidetic perceptual laws govern the passive formation of new syntheses, and the universal law of passive genesis is association.

Husserl (1931/1973) differentiates between the empirical sciences’ understanding of associations and that of phenomenology. Within the framework of empirical science, particularly cognitive psychology, associations are typically modeled as links between discrete mental representations, formed through repeated co-occurrence and governed by probabilistic or mechanistic processes. In contrast, phenomenology understands associations in terms of intentionality. An association is not a causal or mechanistic link between internal data points, but a dynamic lived relation between present experience and the horizon of possible experiences. To associate, in this sense, is not to match a current perception with stored representations, but rather to intend toward further meanings, towards what is yet not given but may be fulfilled. The present experience “points to” a field of potential experiential continuations. This “pointing to” is experienced as if the associated content calls on us and that we feel their connection, it “belongs to it” (Husserl, cited in Biceaga, 2007, p. 47). This calling or felt connection motivates us; they are motivational forces. These may be motivations taken up by our ego as premises that motivate certain active judgements or decisions, or they may motivate further sedimented similar acts within the sphere of passive synthesis. The latter implies that the passive motivations remain hidden in our preconscious unexplored.

The phenomenological researcher is therefore called to empathically attune to what is implied or co-given but not directly spoken. This requires openness and a willingness to leave space for the unspoken and the ambiguous, rather than reducing participants’ experiences into neatly separated categories. In this light, all evidence, that is, all present experiences or presences, is always situated within a meaningful context, or horizon, which includes what has come before and what is anticipated. It follows that evidence is necessarily imperfect since it always carries unfulfilled, expectant and accompanying meanings (Husserl, 1931/1973, p. 62).

Passive Synthesis and Habituation

As researchers, our former active, intentional and conscious behavior may later transform into preconscious habits, unwittingly restricting our freedom. We may be drawn into confirmation bias, as our preconceptions shape what we notice and perceive as meaningful, potentially leading to persistent prejudices that preclude future disconfirmation. On the basis of these arguments, we can sympathize with the interpretive critique, yet Husserlian phenomenology offers a different perspective.

Husserl (2001) described how the process of apperception involves two principles or forms of the production/development of our constitutive acts, namely the process of passive and active synthesis (pp. 77-78). Passive synthesis refers to acts of consciousness that occur with little or no active involvement from the ego. This includes matters such as impressions, associations, and habits that shape experience without deliberate, reflective effort. Passive synthesis refers to the underlying, non-thematized, and often unnoticed process by which consciousness continuously forms and organizes experience. In contrast, egoic acts are active, intentional acts of consciousness where the ego deliberately focuses, reflects, or directs attention. Husserl outlined different levels of passive synthesis, from the most basic level of the existence of mere unitary physical things (primordial passivity), when all cultural meanings are disregarded, to preconscious former active syntheses (secondary passivity). The most basic synthesis of physical things is given to us before we actively grasp them “spiritually” (p.78). However, these also have their history ingrained in their form, and it is because of an essential and necessary development that we can experience a unitary physical thing at first glance. Our experiential phenomena have a historical development and are formed layer by layer (Biceaga, 2007, p. 9).

These layers of segmentations, or layers of sense, are not the work of the individual alone, but are also largely inherited from our culture. The historical development of the ego, as well as that of the social world, implies that the sphere of “ownness” as often referred to by Husserl, is inherently intersubjective (Donohoe, 2016). Others have historically contributed to the development of my ego and are always implied or present in my experience of the world. Thus, the intersubjective world at the primordial level and felt as a passive association, comes before the ego reflects on itself and can therefore be considered as primary.

Active synthesis denotes the active acts of the ego (or consciousness), which includes all the works of practical reason such as inferring, evaluating, and desiring, etc. These ego-acts, while existing within a social context and based on already given objects, constitute new original objects.

Husserl (2001) argues that “anything built by activity necessarily presupposes, as the lowest level, a passivity that gives something beforehand; and when we trace anything built actively, we run into constitution by passive generation” (p. 78).

Husserl further explained that the products of active synthesis, that is, of our active grasping, depend on the material provided by passive synthesis. Additionally, newly and actively intended objects over time become habitual and recede into the domain of passive constitution (secondary passivity), which implies a continuing acceptance, and subsequently is experienced as simply existing for the object (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). As such, it recedes from focal awareness and becomes part of our grounding foundation of passive synthesis, which new active synthesis depends on. That is our habitual way of perceiving and acting in the world, lying preconsciously and unreflectively in the ground, or horizon, of our experience, scaffolding how we experience the world as meaningful (Howell, 2024, p. 6). We may refocus on the habitual constitution of an object at any time, which then lifts the constitutive act from a preconscious, passive to an active and conscious level of synthesis.

For Husserl, it was most important to solve the obstacle of secondary passivity to achieve scientific renewal. Habits and past experiences do not determine our future action; rather, they prepare us for future engagement in a general and open-ended way (Husserl, 1931/1973). The habituality and associations involved in secondary passivity represent a reservoir of content/knowledge that researchers can draw on in its synthetic activity, and that expands the context in which reflective activity is performed (Biceaga, 2007, p. 17). Although prior experiences inevitably shape our perceptions, they do not determine or limit our ability to understand others. Instead, they can serve as resources enabling us to recognize increasingly complex patterns of meaning. In this way, past experiences support nuanced and empathetic understanding rather than acting as insurmountable barriers.

Reciprocity and the Dual Character of Flesh

Husserlian phenomenology stresses that knowing the other is a dialogical, embodied process. It underscores that knowledge is co-constituted in the researcher-participant interaction and highlights that our bodily presence, reactions and intentions help shape the meanings that emerge.

To illustrate the Husserlian phenomenological perspective on the dynamic and reciprocal nature of passive and active synthesis in perception, I draw on both Husserl and Merleau-Ponty: Husserl for his foundational analysis the unity of spirit and flesh and of perception as a reciprocal or two-sided event, and Merleau-Ponty for his further development of this idea through the flesh, lived body and embodied perception.

In Ideas II, Husserl (1952/1990) described the body and the spirit as a comprehensive intuitive unity, which presents itself when we grasp a person as such; we experience a unity of the “expression” and the “expressed” (p. 248). My attention is focused not on the outer appearance of the person, but on the unity of the others’ visual body and spirit which is fused together. Husserl (1952/1990) described the reciprocal structure of experience in perception; when we touch something with our hand and fingers in a certain position, a corresponding touch aspect of the object belongs corresponds to it (object side). At the same time our fingers register sensations (subject-side). Perception, therefore, is always a two-sided and relational event in which object and subject are inseparably intertwined.

In the “The Visible and the Invisible” Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) elaborated on this unity of the body and spirit/mind in the notion flesh, which serves as a medium through which we intertwine with the world. When we intentionally perceive an object or another person, it is not a one-way process but rather a dynamic interrelation or an intertwining between the perceiver and the perceived. Following Husserl, Merleau-Ponty stressed that flesh has a dual and reciprocal character; through being flesh we can both perceive and be perceived. We touch and are being touched reciprocally at the same time. Merleau-Ponty stressed that vision should be considered a form of palpation and has the same dual and reciprocal structure; by seeing objects, we ourselves become visible to ourselves or others. The dual character allows the world to appear for us. Only by being made of the same stuff (flesh) as the world, can we perceive, inhabit and exist in this world. Moreover, flesh is our element for existence in the world and is formed amid the world. We move in a world as both tangible and visible to us, and what is experienced as tangible is also visible at the same time.

Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) explicates that there is an intimate relationship, or a “thickness” between us and the world, and compares it to that between the sea and the shore. Being made of the same stuff, we intertwine with, incorporate and inhabit the world. At the same time, he stresses that there is a necessary distance or separateness; we do not blend into the world, nor the world into us, for if that were the case, the world would vanish. We palpate things with our vision, envelope them and “clothe them with our own flesh”, but in doing so we experience them as external to us (p. 131). The “thickness” of our body or look that creates a distance, however, is exactly that which makes our communication with the world possible. Our separateness is a prerequisite for knowing objects and persons in the world. By “enveloping” them with our own flesh, we paradoxically unveil them. However, it requires that we focus on the object, moving from a less precise “atmospheric existence” and a more general perception to penetrating it–fixating its structure (p.132). This fixated structure, however, is a moment in the constant ever-changing flux of things. Its meaning is dependent on its temporal and spatial horizons, both its historicity and multiple possibilities of being. This historicity prepares us in a general and open manner, through our ability to perceive the invisible and implicit essences or ideas inherent in the objects or situations we perceive. Our perception of the world is “a sort of straits between exterior horizons and interior horizons ever gaping open” (p. 132).

Methodologically, this reminds us that perception is always reciprocal; when researchers attend to participants’ experiences, they are not detached observers but embodied participants in the encounter. The ability to know the other depends fundamentally on our capacity for empathy, enabling us to attune to their experiences while remaining aware of our own role in shaping interaction. Furthermore, the meaning of what is said must be understood within its context. For example, the meaning of an utterance in an interview cannot be fully grasped in isolation; it depends on what was said earlier, what follows later, as well as the broader context of the person’s life and experiences (Giorgi, 2009). The interview should be considered as a Gestalt, where the different moments integrate into a whole (synthesis) that is qualitatively different from and more than the mere sum of its parts (Gurwitsch, 1966). This perspective also acknowledges that an analysis artificially fixes moments in the participant’s life, which is otherwise in a state of constant flux.

Regarding the Experience of Someone Else: Intersubjectivity and Empathy

Given that our consciousness constitutes the world – how can we gain access to the subjective experience of other subjects? Does this not necessarily lead to interpretation of the other? Husserlian phenomenology answer to this question is positive, but with important nuance. The claim is that we can directly perceive other’s feelings and intentions. How so?

Empathy (Einfühlung) is described by both Husserl (1931/1973, 1952/1990) and Edith Stein (1917/1989) as a specific type of act of perceiving “Sui Generis”, which is neither a projection nor an imitation (Stein, 1917/1989, p. 11). There is an a priori core or ‘instinctual’ form of empathy present within all later segmentations on the basis of experience (Husserl, as cited in Donohoe, 2016). It follows that we are not solipsistic egos closed in on ourselves, doomed to never know the feelings and thoughts of others. We have the ability to experience directly the feelings and intentions of the other. That is, we perceive gestures in terms of how they feel (Whitney, 2012).

In Ideas II (1952/1990) and Cartesian Meditations (1931/1973), Husserl described empathy through the concept of analogizing apprehension; as an analogizing modification, I appresentatively constitute the other ego, their primordial world (their own first person perspective and original field of experience) within my own sphere of experience (ownness). Since the other’s experience does not originate within me, it is conceivable only as an analog, a similarity to something contained within my own experiential sphere (peculiar ownness), through an intentional modification of my primordial world. The character of being “my” self is formed by virtue of the contrasting pairing with the other.

Husserl (1931/1973) continues to explain that he does not mean an analog in the usual meaning that we sense other people by inference on the basis of analogy. Rather, it is a kind of intuitive perceptual awareness rooted in embodied experience; we analogize from our own embodiment and subjectivity to grasp the other as a human being like us. Harmonious behavior of others is experienced as “a unitary transcending experience” where we experience other persons “as having a physical side that indicates something psychic appresentatively” (p. 94). Thus, through apperception we immediately experience the other person as a subject, and not as an object.

As further elaborated by Edith Stein (1917/1989), we perceive the experience of the other not as our own, but as being directly given and real, present alongside our own experience in a con-primordial manner. Through analogical apperception, we grasp the other’s zero-point orientation (their unique first-person perspective), while retaining our own. Because we can never perceive the other’s feelings and intentions from a first-person perspective, empty (unfulfilled) anticipations of the other will always be incompletely fulfilled (p. 115).

Husserlian phenomenology offers a theory of empathy as direct perception (Husserl, 1931/1973). There is no need to interpret what lies behind the outer expressions; the other’s subjectivity is not an object, not something given to me as a thing in time and space, and yet it is nevertheless intuitively given to me, here and now. As further illuminated by Merleau-Ponty (1960/1964):

Anger, shame, hate and love are not psychic facts hidden at the bottom of another’s consciousness: they are types of behaviour or styles of conduct which are visible from the outside. They exist on this face or in those gestures, not hidden behind them (pp. 52-53).

Moreover, the feelings and intentions of the other are “experienced as a range of possibilities for social interaction” (Merleau-Ponty, 1960/1964, p. 119). These perceived possibilities afford or motivate certain responses.

In empathy, we immediately recognize the other as having a separate consciousness that is partly accessible and partly inaccessible to us. This asymmetry, which Husserl described as essential in intersubjectivity, is what prevents our relation with others from collapsing into an undifferentiated collectivity (Husserl, as cited in Zahavi, 2003, pp.124-125). Husserl (1931/1973, 1952/1990) proposed that we are constitutive subjects in a world that is, in essence, intersubjective (see also Donohoe, 2016). The very fact that I experience myself as a person implies the presence of other people. Furthermore, we experience objects as external to ourselves precisely because they are accessible to others, and their shareability constitutes their objectivity. This shared horizon of experience, the intersubjective world, not only grounds objectivity but also makes possible the empathetic apprehension of the other as a subject of experience such as myself.

According to Husserl (1952/1990, 1931/1973), we are in essential ways interwoven with each other, and through this intentional interwovenness we constitute a common lifeworld. Not only do we empathically reach out toward others, but the other also understands us, adjusts their behavior, and responds with agreement or disagreement. Through dialogue we constitute social unities of a higher order, which Husserl called social subjectivities or “worlds”. Merleau-Ponty (1960/1964) further developed the embodied dimensions of intersubjectivity, extrapolating how our bodies are interconnected, or coupled; there is ‘the transfer of my intentions to the other’s body and of his intentions to my own’ (p. 118). Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the reciprocity of flesh suggests that consciousness is not enclosed within the body but is a dimension of it, interwoven with and expressed through our bodily being. We perceive others’ intentions with our bodies. Because they are capable of the same intentions, expressive behavior has an intersubjective significance.

We are born into a cultural world that is already filled with meanings, meanings that are handed down to us through others, most importantly our significant others. The cultural world has been built up over generations, as “our interactions with others are sedimented in the environment; together we leave an imprint on nature” (Røseth & Bongaardt, 2018, pp. 124-125). These sedimentations make up our cultural world filled with objects that represent more general shared cultural meanings (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). A cultural world that motivates us to act in certain ways; it affords certain behaviors from us. According to Husserl (1931/1973), we relate to each other on the basis of a mutual understanding of the same intersubjectively constituted world and the things within it. For researchers, this means that we always understand participants with reference to a shared world and cultural context. Husserl (1931/1973) was primarily occupied with understanding the individual ego and its relation to other egos through empathy, rather than how these egos come together to form a shared social world. He was concerned with the essential role of intersubjectivity and empathy for a phenomenological epistemological project aimed at revealing the possibility of “objective” knowledge for the natural sciences, as well as in the development of the phenomenological method.

Alfred Schutz (1951, 1971, 1973) building on Husserl, further developed the analysis of intersubjectivity by grounding it in the social world, emphasizing the we-relation as a fundamental structure of shared meanings and how we interpret and make sense of each other’s actions within a preexisting social and cultural context. Empathy as an intentional conscious act that brings the other’s subjectivity into view, is grounded in this shared lifeworld. It occurs within a cultural context and rests upon a background of passive syntheses, habitual, pre-thematic structures that make social understanding possible before explicit reflection or judgment. We engage in a “mutual tuning-in’ relationship upon which all communication is founded,” in which a we is experienced as a “vivid presence” (1951, p. 79). This mutual tuning-in explicates the process of developing a shared stream of meaning in empathy. Schutz (1973) further described how we can live and move between different «worlds» all belonging to our lifeworld, and how sociocultural context helps form these different «worlds». For example, the ”work world” has different meanings, affordances and possibilities for action, than our “world” of family life. We can inhabit and shift between a multitude of different social worlds within a larger lifeworld or homeworld. However, according to Schutz, we retain a coherent sense of self, despite moving between multiple worlds and navigating different systems of meaning. We may, however, have different positions and may feel more or less synchronized, or desynchronized, with these worlds. While others perceive the same world as we do, it appears differently to each subject, shaped by their embodied situatedness. Queer phenomenology, for instance, has helped reveal how individuals from marginalized groups may feel alienated and not ‘at home’ within the dominant sociocultural meanings of their own culture (Ahmed, 2006).

Yet, within Husserlian phenomenology it remains possible to understand the other, precisely because of the intersubjective structure of the broader homeworld, which is sufficiently overlapping and general to make mutual understanding possible (Husserl, 1931/1973, 1952/1990). Through empathy, researchers can grasp the other’s distinct and situated mode of experiencing the world (Churchill, 2022; Englander, 2025). Even radically different lifeworlds of cultures can be intersubjectively understood through our shared spiritual world that underpins all human experience and understanding, enabling researchers to explore the perspectives of participants from diverse socio-cultural or minority backgrounds.

A Method for Revealing Our Constitutive Grasp of the World

“How can I be open to phenomena which transcend me, and which nevertheless exists only to the extent that I take them up and live them?” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962/1945, p. 363).

The above paradox presents a challenge for phenomenology’s optimistic view of our capacity to attain true knowledge of other subjects and objects in the world. Husserl (1931/1973) resolved this by proposing that, even if meanings have been instilled layer by layer in us through former experiences and choices, and are shaped by our sociohistorical culture, these layered sense giving structures have a general form that is continuously adjusted and modified by new experiences. Thus, these acquired eidetic structures of our perceptual life, which are a prerequisite for experiencing the world as meaningful, do not generally pose a problem for our openness to new experiences, but develop, change, fulfil or verify appercepted horizons of meaning. We are fundamentally open to the world and new experiences, which, at the same time, are constituted by us owing to the multilayered, and increasingly finetuned, instilled sense of perception.

Nevertheless, Husserl acknowledged that our sedimented history, as layers of sense, can also hinder development and openness, if traditions are (consciously or prereflectively) rigidly upheld when confronted with what is alien or different. Nevertheless, our habitual constitution of the world depends on our continued acceptance of it; we can always apprehend the object anew in a fresh synthesis (Husserl, 1931/1973). For example, when our new experience breaks with the habitual constitution and anticipation of the object, we may adjust and modify these habitual sense-instituting acts. The challenge for Husserl’s phenomenology, then, was to develop a method that would ensure our openness to the world.

In our everyday natural attitude, we experience the synthesized objects of apperception as existing as such independently of us, that is “in themselves”. The phenomenological method aims to suspend our natural attitude and reduce our experience of objects to that of phenomena. It suspends our belief in the factual existence of objects and instead focuses on how the objects are presented to our embodied consciousness, our grasp of the world. This suspension, Husserl argues, makes it possible for us to study how we constitute or instill meanings into our lifeworld, and what meanings objects and persons in the world have for us. It allows us to reflect on the structures and layers of perception that shape our experiences and understanding of the world.

The lived experience of the other is included in the researchers’ lived experience as presented in empathy (Donohoe, 2016, p. 77). Furthermore, we can employ the phenomenological reduction on the empathized consciousness of the other, thus achieving a double phenomenological reduction. “Empathy is the experience of an empathized consciousness, into which we can also exercise the phenomenological reduction” (Husserl, as cited in Donohoe, 2016, p. 216). As phenomenological researchers, we empathically intuit and describe how the participants constitute their world, refraining from interpreting, categorizing or judging their experience according to our own framework.

Husserl maintained that our understanding of others occurs within an intersubjectively constituted lifeworld, a shared surrounding that encompasses all co-existing conscious human beings and which is simultaneously both constituted by and provides the conditions for empathy. The other has his own position and perspective with respect to this shared world. We are essentially formed by our history and culture, shaped most notably through our personal relations. Our constitutive acts carry within them a sedimented history, inscribed in their form of experience, even the most basic experience of unitary physical objects. It is through essential and necessary development that I can experience these at first glance. Husserl (1931/1973, 2001) described both a theory of early psychological development and a genetic phenomenology, showing how we can uncover the historical development of how we constitute our world at any given moment. As opposed to his earlier developed static phenomenology, which typically focuses on the analysis of various intentional acts; how we think, remember, anticipate, etc. Our prior experiences shape the way we perceive and engage with the world in fundamental ways. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) described this as the habituation of ways of being and perceiving, while Heidegger (1927/1996) emphasized its manifestation in mood, the basic emotional tone or fundamental attunement that colors our being-in-the-world. From birth, through interactions with people and objects in the world, we gradually develop these habitual ways of being and perceiving (Shusterman, 2012; Stern, 1985). Husserl developed the genetic phenomenological method as a supplement to, and not as replacement for, his static phenomenological method (Donohoe, 2016, p. 74). The insights inherent in his genetic phenomenology do not invalidate or make his earlier static analysis redundant. Rather, they expand upon and enable an analysis of the historicity of our sense-giving (meaning constitution) in a cultural context, while still remaining within a descriptive intuitive method.

Researchers can integrate the static and genetic phenomenological approach in their research. For example, Røseth and Bongaardt (2019) in their investigation on maternal love, examined the contextualized general meaning structure of a mother struggling to love her baby, while also incorporating a genetic analysis of this struggle based on her own caregiving experiences. Specifically, the study analyzed how patterns of meanings expressed in relation to her own parents were connected to her current difficulties with her baby, highlighting the influence of past experiences on present relational challenges.

The dual approach of static and genetic phenomenology offers a nuanced understanding of how meanings are shaped by both personal and shared experiences. By tracing the historical development of these meanings, it reveals the dynamic interplay between past and present, as well as between individual and collective contexts.

Reflexivity in the Phenomenological Reduction

The phenomenological reduction is often mistakenly characterized as lacking reflexivity, as if reflexivity was indicative of only interpretive or hermeneutic phenomenology. However, I argue that within the phenomenological reduction, we engage in a critical reflection and maintain an ongoing reflexivity that suspends our judgments about what the phenomenon “truly is”, or should be, and holds our premature judgments and theories in abeyance. It is not a näive suspension of all presuppositions at the start of the research process; rather, it involves a rigorous, ongoing reflexive activity in which the researcher continuously examines how phenomena present themselves to his/her consciousness. In the reduction, the researcher recognizes that she has a particular perspective informed by her own historicity. The aim of the reduction is to ensure that the researcher remains receptive and dynamically open to the Other’s experiences, or to what is unfamiliar or alien. Through empathy we can achieve direct engagement with the other individual’s subjective experience and perform a double phenomenological reduction.

Performing the reduction, then, involves a form of deep reflection and a disciplined ongoing reflexivity. It is a radical form of reflexivity as it constantly interrogates how meaning is constituted in experience; it is a method for making one’s subjectivity visible and manageable. This article has hopefully made it clear that reflexivity, in fact, is at the core of the reduction. Husserl (1931/1973) explains that we do not create others, but rather that we encounter them. Although meaning is not believed to be co-constructed (through social interaction in language or in culture) in the same way as in social constructivism, the phenomenological perspective certainly holds that meanings are co-constituted in relation to other people and the world. Meaning is intentional, arising from the directedness of consciousness toward others or objects in the world. It is co-constituted through intersubjectivity within a shared world of experience, a lifeworld, which forms the background horizon for all meaning.

Nevertheless, Husserl (1931/1973) stressed that the task of phenomenology is description: to carefully uncover and articulate how phenomena present themselves to consciousness. Through the reduction, he aimed to suspend preconceptions and explanatory frameworks, focusing on the descriptive analysis of lived experience, even while recognizing its situated character. The insistence on describing rather than explaining is not grounded in a naïve understanding, but rather in an ethical commitment to the meanings expressed by the participant. By demanding restraint and empathic attunement, the reduction becomes a method of respecting the otherness of others.

Reflexivity is often portrayed as unequivocally positive but is frequently reduced in research articles to superficial descriptions of one’s profession, gender identity and familiarization with the phenomenon of the study, particularly within interpretive phenomenological research articles. While not arguing against the merits of acknowledging one’s own perspective and historicity, which is, in fact inherent to the phenomenological reduction, I claim that overly reflective and reflexive practices can lead to analytical distancing or a form of premature intellectualization which may hinder a deep empathic connection. Instead, the researcher may begin to listen for what their own position or theoretical lens reveals about the participant, rather than listening to the meanings inherent in the descriptions given by the participant - in empathy.

The challenge lies in sustaining empathy while remaining reflexively aware, engaging in a disciplined and reflective form of empathic understanding. Drawing on Husserl’s (2001) concept of passive synthesis, the phenomenological reduction, when cultivated as a sustained attitude, can become habitualized, operating as a background orientation rather than a deliberate, effortful act. Once sedimented, it no longer requires constant egoic intervention, but supports an open, receptive stance toward phenomena, allowing for more genuine and sustained tuning-in to the other in empathic engagement. It is essential, however, that the reduction does not lose its critical edge, avoiding the risk of overlooking subtle biases or unexamined assumptions. We must stay actively empathetic while simultaneously keeping a critical, reflective awareness, balancing understanding with thoughtful scrutiny.

This article advances methodological knowledge by demonstrating that reflexivity is inherent in the phenomenological reduction, highlighting how past experiences serve as dynamic preconditions for intersubjective understanding and the nuanced constitution of meaning.

Conclusions

At first blush, one might conclude from Husserl’s theoretical explications of apperception, intentional association (sense coinciding), and passive synthesis, that they present a strong argument against the possibility of attaining true knowledge of objects and persons in the world. Such a conclusion would suggest a move towards a more relativistic epistemological stance. In response to this potential fallacy of phenomenology as a solid foundation for philosophy and science, Husserl further explicated the phenomenological theory of the fundamental openness in our habitual apperception of the world and how through empathy and a critical reflection called the phenomenological attitude, we can observe and describe not only our own constituted objects and the associated often implicit constitutive acts, but also those of other people.

My experience as a phenomenological researcher and familiarity with phenomenological writings may enhance my capacity for passive synthesis, fostering a heightened perceptual openness that enables the intuitively grasping of emergent meanings and experiential wholes, while training my tolerance for ambiguity, conflict and ambivalence. It may sharpen my attention to bodily nuance and relational dynamics, and overall ground my trust in lived, and pre-conceptual meanings.

These phenomenological insights and the implied embodied, relational and perceptual training are what makes my intuition of complex meaning patterns not just possible but philosophically defensible. Passive synthesis grounds my intuitions of meaning patterns before I reflect or analyze them. It trains me to notice what is already given as meaningful, not just what is said explicitly. It opens up the world for me, and if cultivated and trained, it can increase rather than limit my openness to other people and the world.