Phenomenology is the attempted philosophical science of experience (especially as launched by Edmund Husserl). In this document I comment on some passages of The Urantia Book that resonate with phenomenological insights. Phenomenology has produced book-length studies of the following forms of conscious: perception (Husserl, Ideas toward a pure phenomenology and a phenomenological philosophy, vol I), memory (Edward Casey), imagining (Edward Casey), reasoning (Husserl, Experience and Judgment), evaluation (Max Scheler), willing (Paul Ricoeur), and more.
Within mind, we recognize what is outside of mind
A central insight in Husserl’s phenomenology is clearly stated here.
(1228.7) 112:2.12 To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness.
Some modes of consciousness are founded upon others.
In general, I interpret phenomenology as portraying decision as founded upon evaluation, which is founded upon interpretation, which is founded on perception (or whatever mode of presentation first brings the object to consciousness.
(1141.5) 103:9.7 Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH.
(1228.7) 112:2.12 In science the human self observes the material world; philosophy is the observation of this observation of the material world; religion, true spiritual experience, is the experiential realization of the cosmic reality of the observation of the observation of all this relative synthesis of the energy materials of time and space. To build a philosophy of the universe on an exclusive materialism is to ignore the fact that all things material are initially conceived as real in the experience of human consciousness. The observer cannot be the thing observed; evaluation demands some degree of transcendence of the thing which is evaluated.
(65.5) 5:3.3 We . . . engage in such worship as a natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father’s matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable attributes.
Worship is founded upon recognition. And perhaps recognition is founded on the realization of the lovable nature and/or adorable attributes in the phenomenon that leads us to recognition.
Modes of consciousness which are basic—not founded on anything more basic
Why do you believe that? When confronted with this question, we can often give a reason. If the question is repeated, we may be able to give a reason for our reason. But after a while, reasoning ends. Certain basics you just have to see—intuitively. Phenomenology studies the basic intuitions at the root of basic forms of insight into, for example, causation, duty, and worship.
(1139.3) 103:7.11 All divisions of human thought are predicated on certain assumptions which are accepted, though unproved, by the constitutive reality sensitivity of the mind endowment of man. Science starts out on its vaunted career of reasoning by assuming the reality of three things: matter, motion, and life. Religion starts out with the assumption of the validity of three things: mind, spirit, and the universe — the Supreme Being.
These basics are themes for phenomenology.
(1141.6) 103:9.8 Science (knowledge) is founded on the inherent (adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended. Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co-ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that faith is valid, that God can be known and attained.
Husserl insisted that phenomenology was a descriptive discipline prior to logical reasoning, scientific or philosophical. Phenomenology’s descriptions were to be self-evident (cp. 16:6, 192); at the same time, Husserl recognized that his findings needed to be verified by the community of phenomenological researchers, inasmuch as no one person could guarantee his or her own purity of intuition and fidelity of description. Philosophical critics assailed Husserl’s pretentions to phenomenology as a rigorous (but not quantitative) science; and the persuasive success of these critics have led to a massive inattention to, and forgetting of, the insights achieved by Husserl and others.
In general, consciousness achieves the recognition of every type of reality that transcends it. It is in the mind that we become conscious of soul (and remember that the soul is the self-reflective, truth-discerning, and spirit-perceiving part of man).
The correlation of particular types of acts of consciousness with particular types of objects
What is human experience? It is simply any interplay between an active and questioning self and any other active and external reality. The mass of experience is determined by depth of concept plus totality of recognition of the reality of the external. The motion of experience equals the force of expectant imagination plus the keenness of the sensory discovery of the external qualities of contacted reality. The fact of experience is found in self-consciousness plus other-existences — other-thingness, other-mindness, and other-spiritness. (102:4.2; 1123.2)
This paragraph strikes me as very phenomenological.
There are just three elements in universal reality: fact, idea, and relation. The religious consciousness identifies these realities as science, philosophy, and truth. Philosophy would be inclined to view these activities as reason, wisdom, and faith — physical reality, intellectual reality, and spiritual reality. We are in the habit of designating these realities as thing, meaning, and value. (196:3.2/2094.1)
This paragraph implies the intimate correlation between mind and its objects. It seems paradoxical to allow fact, science, reason, physical reality and thing function as synonyms. Or idea, philosophy, wisdom, intellectual reality, and meaning—synononyms? Or relation, truth, faith, spiritual reality, and value—synonyms? At the very least we want to distinguish the human activities and disciplines of mind and the realities that they intend progressively to discover. But phenomenology precisely explores such intimate correlations. The pre-Socratic Greed philosopher Parmenides spoke of thinking and being as the same. The point is not to confuse distinctions, but to explicate correlations.
(1139.4) 103:7.12 Science becomes the thought domain of mathematics, of the energy and material of time in space. Religion assumes to deal not only with finite and temporal spirit but also with the spirit of eternity and supremacy. . . .
(1139.5) 103:7.13 Reason is the act of recognizing the conclusions of consciousness with regard to the experience in and with the physical world of energy and matter. Faith is the act of recognizing the validity of spiritual consciousness — something which is incapable of other mortal proof. Logic is the synthetic truth-seeking progression of the unity of faith and reason and is founded on the constitutive mind endowments of mortal beings, the innate recognition of things, meanings, and values.
(1139.6) 103:7.14 There is a real proof of spiritual reality in the presence of the Thought Adjuster, but the validity of this presence is not demonstrable to the external world, only to the one who thus experiences the indwelling of God. The consciousness of the Adjuster is based on the intellectual reception of truth, the supermind perception of goodness, and the personality motivation to love.
(1139.7) 103:7.15 Science discovers the material world, religion evaluates it, and philosophy endeavors to interpret its meanings while co-ordinating the scientific material viewpoint with the religious spiritual concept. But history is a realm in which science and religion may never fully agree.
Consider the central quote on mind and reality.
16:6.6 (192.2) 1. Causation—the reality domain of the physical senses, the scientific realms of logical uniformity, the differentiation of the factual and the nonfactual, reflective conclusions based on cosmic response. This is the mathematical form of the cosmic discrimination.
16:6.7 (192.3) 2. Duty—the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. This is the judicial form of the cosmic discrimination.
16:6.8 (192.4) 3. Worship—the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience, the personal realization of divine fellowship, the recognition of spirit values, the assurance of eternal survival, the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. This is the highest insight of the cosmic mind, the reverential and worshipful form of the cosmic discrimination.
16:6.10 (192.6) In the local universe mind bestowals, these three insights of the cosmic mind constitute the a priori assumptions which make it possible for man to function as a rational and self-conscious personality in the realms of science, philosophy, and religion. Stated otherwise, the recognition of the reality of these three manifestations of the Infinite is by a cosmic technique of self-revelation.
These intuitions, capacities for intuition, are fundamental structures of mind. Since we work with them, but cannot prove them, they may be called assumptions. Since they are basic to mind, they are called apriori (Kant’s term). But they these intuitions are not merely the inherent framework that creature mind imposes on reality. It is also the Infinite source of these reality domains who is reveals himself in this way to the creature.
The view from within—what phenomenology describes
(1135.4) 103:6.2 When man approaches the study and examination of his universe from the outside, he brings into being the various physical sciences; when he approaches the research of himself and the universe from the inside, he gives origin to theology and metaphysics. The later art of philosophy develops in an effort to harmonize the many discrepancies which are destined at first to appear between the findings and teachings of these two diametrically opposite avenues of approaching the universe of things and beings.
(1135.5) 103:6.3 Religion has to do with the spiritual viewpoint, the awareness of the insideness of human experience. Man’s spiritual nature affords him the opportunity of turning the universe outside in. It is therefore true that, viewed exclusively from the insideness of personality experience, all creation appears to be spiritual in nature.
(1135.6) 103:6.4 When man analytically inspects the universe through the material endowments of his physical senses and associated mind perception, the cosmos appears to be mechanical and energy-material. Such a technique of studying reality consists in turning the universe inside out.
(1135.7) 103:6.5 A logical and consistent philosophic concept of the universe cannot be built up on the postulations of either materialism or spiritism, for both of these systems of thinking, when universally applied, are compelled to view the cosmos in distortion, the former contacting with a universe turned inside out, the latter realizing the nature of a universe turned outside in. Never, then, can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.
(1136.1) 103:6.6 Always must man’s inner spirit depend for its expression and self-realization upon the mechanism and technique of the mind. Likewise must man’s outer experience of material reality be predicated on the mind consciousness of the experiencing personality. Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. Man experiences matter in his mind; he experiences spiritual reality in the soul but becomes conscious of this experience in his mind. The intellect is the harmonizer and the ever-present conditioner and qualifier of the sum total of mortal experience. Both energy-things and spirit values are colored by their interpretation through the mind media of consciousness.
(1138.4) 103:7.6 Logic is the technique of philosophy, its method of expression. Within the domain of true science, reason is always amenable to genuine logic; within the domain of true religion, faith is always logical from the basis of an inner viewpoint, even though such faith may appear to be quite unfounded from the inlooking viewpoint of the scientific approach. From outward, looking within, the universe may appear to be material; from within, looking out, the same universe appears to be wholly spiritual. Reason grows out of material awareness, faith out of spiritual awareness, but through the mediation of a philosophy strengthened by revelation, logic may confirm both the inward and the outward view, thereby effecting the stabilization of both science and religion. Thus, through common contact with the logic of philosophy, may both science and religion become increasingly tolerant of each other, less and less skeptical.
The inherent reality of faith (101:1.4/1105.1)
Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
This is a perfectly phenomenological statement. Take believing in God. There is a reality to the experience itself. But one may ask, well, here’s the experience within my mind, but maybe it’s just all in my mind. What’s the real reality of that experience? Is God for real. The answer is that the experience has cosmic reality—and that is the reality of your experience itself, which you were already experiencing. Phenomenology has been called a kind of philosophical psychology.
Consciousness and belief in the existence of the object of consciousness
Belief in existence can be separated from our experience of something. In the mansion world, a faint memory can become invested with the quality of reality. Before that, it was an experience, but not with the sense of reality accompanying it. Separating the assumption of real-existence from the phenomena to be described was a major technique for Husserl in his science of consciousness. This separation is not easy, and many critics have declared it to be impossible (it is not—I know whereof I speak).
The origin-point/center of consciousness
(1479.6) 133:7.6 My son, I have already told you much about the mind of man and the divine spirit that lives therein, but now let me emphasize that self-consciousness is a reality. When any animal becomes self-conscious, it becomes a primitive man. Such an attainment results from a co-ordination of function between impersonal energy and spirit-conceiving mind, and it is this phenomenon which warrants the bestowal of an absolute focal point for the human personality, the spirit of the Father in heaven.
(1479.7) 133:7.7 Ideas are not simply a record of sensations; ideas are sensations plus the reflective interpretations of the personal self; and the self is more than the sum of one’s sensations. There begins to be something of an approach to unity in an evolving selfhood, and that unity is derived from the indwelling presence of a part of absolute unity which spiritually activates such a self-conscious animal-origin mind.
(1479.8) 133:7.8 No mere animal could possess a time self-consciousness. Animals possess a physiological co-ordination of associated sensation-recognition and memory thereof, but none experience a meaningful recognition of sensation or exhibit a purposeful association of these combined physical experiences such as is manifested in the conclusions of intelligent and reflective human interpretations. And this fact of self-conscious existence, associated with the reality of his subsequent spiritual experience, constitutes man a potential son of the universe and foreshadows his eventual attainment of the Supreme Unity of the universe.
(1480.1) 133:7.9 Neither is the human self merely the sum of the successive states of consciousness. Without the effective functioning of a consciousness sorter and associator there would not exist sufficient unity to warrant the designation of a selfhood. Such an ununified mind could hardly attain conscious levels of human status. If the associations of consciousness were just an accident, the minds of all men would then exhibit the uncontrolled and random associations of certain phases of mental madness.
This capacity for coherent synthesis of consciousness is due, according to Kant, to the functioning of the “transcendental unity of apperception,” which Husserl called the I-point, I-pole, or ego: the point of the origin of an act consciousness, which could never become an object for consciousness, could never be grasped in reflection, since the act reflection would be a new act whose point of origin would necessarily escape itself. Hume (for whom ideas were simply a record of sensations) and Buddhism have denied the existence of an enduring self.
The Thought Adjuster is the nucleus of the personality, but the function of synthesizing the manifold given in space and time is a function that operates in animals as well.
