A Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) "The Many Phenomenological Reductions"

By Razie Mah

Mark K. Spencer publishes an article in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (volume XX, 2021). The full title is "The Many Phenomenological Reductions and Catholic Metaphysical Anti-Reductionism".
There are as many types of phenomenology as phenomenologists. Or, so it seems. But, according to Spencer, they have one feature in common. They all follow Husserl in attempting to experience the noumenon, the thing itself. In doing so, they swim against the tide of science. Scientists focus on phenomena. Phenomena are observed, measured, modeled and discussed in disciplinary conferences.
I find it odd that Husserl names his inquiry after phenomena, not their noumenon. Also, phenomenological reductionism is not quite the same as scientific reductionism.
Scientific reductionism says, "Look at only the observable and measurable aspects of the thing itself. Build models. Publish these models using specialized disciplinary language. The thing reduces to its models."
Phenomenological reductionism says, "Reduction involves bracketing out all judgments, especially the scientific empirio-schematic judgment. The thing itself may then be directly and intuitively grasped."
Phenomenology is anti-reductionist when it comes to science.
So is Christian metaphysics.
What does this imply?
Spencer proposes an alliance. He discusses the history of phenomenology, how phenomenology and metaphysics challenge one another, and how they might value each other.
What he does not mention is the foil. Both phenomenology and Christian metaphysics compete in their desire to situate the Positivist's judgment, where a positivist intellect holds together the noumenon, its phenomena and the empirio-schematic judgment.
Spencer does not mention science.
This lacunae has implications. My comments sound a series of reveries. Wake up and smell the coffee. Imagine what phenomenology and metaphysics have in store for one another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Sep 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781955931014

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

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A Reverie on Mark Spencer's Essay (2021) The Many Phenomenological Reductions

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2021AD

Notes on Text

This work comments on an article by Mark K. Spencer, appearing in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (2021). The title is The Many Phenomenological Reductions and Catholic Metaphysical Anti-Reductionism. Both phenomenology and anti-reductionist metaphysics are intellectual responses to the successful birth of science in the 17th century. As such, they both struggle to situate science. Since Spencer does not mention science, and since these comments cannot ignore science, I weave science into these comments using reverie, what psychoanalysts call free association. Some parts are more free than others, because my associations are grounded in the category-based nested form and other relational models within the tradition of Charles Peirce.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Prerequisites: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction

Recommended: Comments Jacques Maritain's Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, Comments on Nicholas Berdyaev's Book (1939) Spirit and Reality

Note on Affiliated Works: This commentary belongs to a sequence on phenomenology consisting of:

First, these comments.

Second, Comments on Joseph Trabbic's Essay (2021) "Jean-Luc Marion and... First Philosophy"

Third, Comments on Richard Colledge's Essay (2021) Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Realism

Table of Contents

A Sound Issue

Introduction

An Impressionist, then Surreal History of Phenomenology

Grasping Husserl's Legacy

The Value of Phenomenological Methods

A Sound Issue

0001 What is a sound?

A sound is a compression air