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Phenomenology

Phenomenology. 
The logical starting point of epistemology, the study of knowledge as such, i.e. the philosophical description, explanation, and justification, of knowledge acquisition by humans, cannot be sense-perception per se because sense-perception must itself be correctly described, explained, and justified, before it can be correctly placed in the course of our knowledge. The starting point has to be more fundamental, less specific – it has to be phenomenology, the study of appearance as such.
The primary givens of human knowledge are appearances; the contents of sense-perceptions must, to begin with, be taken as appearances. Doing that does not mean that we reject our common belief that certain appearances are due to sense-perception; it merely means that we are going deeper and looking for the true basis of that belief. The logical order of things from the beginning should be presented briefly as follows.
There are appearances, therefore existents exist; therefore, existence exists. An appearance is something that is an object of consciousness. An existent is something that is actually present in the world at a given time, whether it is an object of consciousness or not. All appearances are existents, but not all existents are appearances. Existence (or being – I consider these terms as identical) is what all existents have in common, and indeed all appearances as such have in common. The statement that existence exists is more than mere tautology; it is informative, the very first true proposition. Non-existence does not exist; it is not a subdomain of existence.
Appearances may be real or illusory. Reality is a more specific characterization than existence; it applies only to some appearances. The real can exist outside of consciousness; the illusory can only arise within consciousness. Normally, we assume that whatever appears is real, unless we have, or until we find, some logical reason to reclassify the appearance as illusory. The illusory also appears, note well; but it involves an imaginary distortion or misinterpretation of some preceding appearance. We know we are caught in an illusion when some contradiction is found in an appearance or set of appearances. The illusory is unreal; it is the antithesis of real.
Appearance, existence, consciousness, reality, illusion, are fundamental terms, which cannot be entirely defined (since they refer to things so basic that they cannot be reduced to other things, i.e. they are irreducible primaries), even if as just done we can to some extent correlate them. These things are understood by all of us, not through verbal definitions, but by direct insight. It cannot be said that there are no appearances or no existents or no consciousness, since in the very act of saying so we are in fact generating an appearance and claiming an existent and demonstrating consciousness. It cannot be said that nothing is real and everything is illusory, because by so doing we are claiming to know this as a reality and not an illusion, which is self-contradictory. So, all this is logically on firm ground, not open to any doubt whatsoever.
Everything that appears exists; and even many things that do not appear exist. We know the latter from the fact that over time new things appear to us which it is inductively reasonable to suppose were there even before they were objects of consciousness; and likewise, things may disappear yet be assumed to continue to exist irrespective. This is confirmed by our comparing the experiences of different people: I may see something before you get to do so, or after you cease to do so; and vice-versa. But not all that apparently exists is real; illusions exist even though they are not real. Whatever appears must be taken to exist, but may turn out to be unreal; it may prima facie be assumed to be real, but it must be kept in mind that subsequent appearance may reveal it to be illusory. Thus, we can say that everything that appears is real, except the relatively rare things that are later found to be illusory. By extension, we may assume that things may without ever appearing be not only existent but also real.
‘Existence exists’ means that something exists – or some things exist. That this is true is evident the moment it is said; and it is incontrovertible, since even discussion of the issue is an admission of existence. It is, moreover, evident that existence exists in our daily experience, whether this experience be considered to be of mere appearance; or of reality or illusion; or of matter, or mind, or spirit; or of concrete or abstract; or of whatever distinction.
The distinction between matter, mind, and spirit is one of domains (let’s say). It can be and usually is characterized as a distinction of substance, but that is mere metaphor because the experience of substance is essentially physical: it might credibly be extended by analogy to concrete mental phenomena like memories, imaginations, and feelings, but is hardly applicable to the spiritual domain, i.e. to introspective experience of self, i.e. of soul and its functions (consciousness, volition, and valuation). Even the characterization of matter, mind and spirit as different domains is metaphorical, since it draws on the experience of space, which is applicable primarily to physical objects, and by extension eventually to mental ones, but cannot literally be assumed of spiritual ones.
The other distinction important to phenomenology and epistemology is that between concretes and abstracts. What we primarily experience, whether it is physical, mental or spiritual, is concrete; this is the empirical level of our intellectual life. We humans then mentally compare and contrast, group, measure, and sort, such empirical givens – this involves abstraction and concept-formation, and constitutes the theoretical level of our intellection. Abstracts are the expressions of our insights; consciousness is essential to them. They have no existence apart from the human beings engaged in such intellectual activity. The world we face (including its physical, mental, and spiritual aspects) is wholly concrete; classes and principles are implied by it, but not concretely embedded in it.
Abstracts per se are not themselves concrete things, existing, as it were, side by side with, or above or below, concrete things. Abstracts are intellectual constructs: they are conceptual products, aided by words and language, of volitional acts of abstraction, which mentally separate or conjoin various aspects of things. Nevertheless, abstracts are essential to the development and success of human knowledge. They help us to summarize and store information about known concretes and thereby, by various logical means, to predict to some extent information about unknown concretes.
Even though abstracts are intellectual constructs, the propositions composed of them may be true or false; and those that are true may be said to be objective, i.e.  to reflect reality in significant ways. This cannot be denied without self-contradiction, note well; therefore, it is self-evidently true.
Clearly, the above primary insights have phenomenological, ontological, epistemological, and logical significance. None of these aspects can be developed independently of the others; they are deeply intertwined.
 
 

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