Phenomenology is an effort at improving our understanding of ourselves and our world by means of careful description of experience.  On the surface, this seems like little more than naturalistic observation and introspection.  Examined a little more closely, you can see that the basic assumptions are quite different from those of the mainstream experimentally-oriented human sciences:  In doing phenomenology, we try to describe phenomena without reducing those phenomena to supposedly objective non-phenomena.  Instead of appealing to objectivity for validation, we appeal instead to inter-subjective aggreement.

Phenomenology begins with phenomena -- appearances, that which we experience, that which is given -- and stays with them.  It doesn't prejudge an experience as to its qualifications to be an experience.  Instead, by taking up a phenomenological attitude, we ask the experience to tell us what it is.

The most basic kind of phenomenology is the description of a particular phenomenon such as a momentary happening, a thing, or even a person, i.e. something full of its uniqueness.  Herbert Spiegelberg (1965) outlines three "steps:"

1. Intuiting -- Experience or recall the phenomenon.  "Hold" it in your awareness, or live in it, be involved in it; dwell in it or on it.
2. Analyzing -- Examine the phenomenon.  Look for...

     the pieces, parts, in the spatial sense;

     the episodes and sequences, in the temporal sense;

     the qualities and dimensions of the phenomenon.

     settings, environments, surroundings;

     the prerequisites and consequences in time;

     the perspectives or approaches one can take.

     cores or foci and fringes or horizons;

     the appearing and disappearing of the phenomena;

     the clarity of the phenomenon.

And investigate these many aspects both in their outward forms -- objects, actions, others -- and in their inward forms -- thoughts, images, feelings.

3. Describing -- Write down your description.  Write it as if the reader had never had the experience.  Guide them through your intuiting and analyzing.

What makes these three simple steps so difficult is the attitude you must maintain as you perform them.  First, you must have a certain respect for the phenomenon.  You must take care that you are intuiting it fully, from all possible "angles," physically and mentally, and leaving nothing out of the analysis that belongs there.  Herbert Spiegelberg said "The genuine will to know calls for the spirit of generosity rather than for that of economy...."*

Included in this "generosity" is a respect for both public and private events, the "objective" and the "subjective."  A basic point in phenomenology is called intentionality, which refers to the mutuality of the subject and the object in experience:  All phenomena involve both an intending act and an intended object.  Traditionally, we have emphasized the value of the object-pole and denigrated that of the subject-pole.  In fact, we have gone so far as to dismiss even the object-pole if it doesn't correspond to some physical entity!  But, to quote Spiegelberg again, "Even merely private phenomena are facts which we have no business to ignore.  A science which refuses to take account of them as such is guilty of suppressing evidence and will end with a truncated universe."*

On the other hand, we must also be on guard against including things in our descriptions that don't belong there.  This is the function of bracketing:  We must put aside all biases we may have about the phenomenon.  When you have a prejudice against a person, you will see what you expect, rather than what is there.  The same applies to phenomena in general:  You must approach them without theories, hypotheses, metaphysical assumptions, religious beliefs, or even common sense conceptions.  Ultimately, bracketing means suspending judgement about the "true nature" or "ultimate reality" of the experience -- even whether or not it exists!

Although the description of individual phenomena is interesting in its own right -- and when it involves people or cultures, a massive undertaking as well -- we usually come to a point where we want to say something about the class the phenomenon is a part of.  In phenomenology, we talk about seeking the essence or structure of something.  So we might investigate the essence of traingularity, or of pizza, or of anger, or of being male or female.  We might even, as the phenomenological existentialists have attempted, seek the essence of being human!

Husserl suggested a method called free imaginative variation:  When you feel you have a description of the essential characteristics of a category of phenomena, ask yourself, "What can I change or leave out without losing the phenomenon?  If I color the triangle blue, or construct it out of Brazilian rosewood, do I still have a triangle?  If I leave out an angle, or curve the sides, do I still have a triangle?"  This may seem trivial and easy, but now try it regarding "being human:"  Is a corpse human?  A disembodied spirit?  A person in a permanent coma?  A porpoise with intelligence and personality?  A just-fertilized egg?  A six-month old fetus?

With phenomenology, the world regains some of its solidity, the mind is again permitted a reality of its own, and a rather paranoid skepticism is replaced with a more generous, and ultimately more satisfying, curiosity.  By returning, as Husserl (1965, 1970) put it, to "the things themselves," or, to use another of his terms, to the lived world (Lebenswelt), we stand a better chance of developing a true understanding of our human existence.