Mathematizing husserlian temporality through the asymmetric bicone model
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences March 12, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s11097-026-10141-7 (opens in new tab)
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AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Husserl distinguishes transcendental phenomenology from mathematics as two fundamentally different classes of eidetic science, differing in the nature of their essences. Using geometry as a contrast, Husserl asks whether phenomenology could be a "geometry of [lived] experiences," concluding that phenomenology's domain is the concrete and the essences of lived experience. |
Abstract
In Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and for a Phenomenological Philosophy ( Ideas I ), particularly in paragraphs 73 to 75, we find a clear differentiation made by Husserl between pure transcendental phenomenology and mathematics. Both are considered eidetic sciences, but they differ in the nature of their essences, or, as highlighted by the author, “transcendental phenomenology belongs to a basic class of eidetic sciences , totally different from that to which the mathematical sciences belong” (Husserl, 2014 , p. 136). To proceed in the distinction between material and formal essences, Husserl then starts from geometry, in order to understand “whether a phenomenology would have to be constituted or even could be constituted as a geometry of [lived] experiences Footnote 1 ” (Husserl, 2014 , p. 129). In this context, encompassed by Husserl as a definite multiplicity Footnote 2 , geometry highlights this differentiation with phenomenology, whose domain is formed by the concrete, by the essences of lived experience .