ce. A philosopher committing epoch refuses to deal with the external world prior to its entry into consciousness. He claims we should describe experience purely as we experience it, without prejudging it by any philosophical doctrine, any scientific theory, or even by our everyday faith that there are things in the world independent of our experience. We should take what we are conscious of at face value and not twist our experience into what we believe it should have been.To accomplish this unbiased description, the epoche must, in particular, suspend any reference to the causes of our experiences. If I experience an apple, and describe it as being red and round, the validity of this description is independent of whether the experience was caused by a real apple in a physical world, or by a neurological fabrication in my brain. How it is experienced is how it is experienced. Furthermore, the difference between the "imagined" and "real" objects is only in the mode of the phenomena; both objects are actualized within consciousness. Analogous to Descartes doubt, performing the epoche permits the philosopher to arrive at evidence that is absolutely certain. Therefore, what a phenomenologists considers important is that which can be experienced via the human senses. After reduction and abstraction, what remains is what an individual knows, regardless of the scientific or transcendental data. This is the Phenomenological Residue of the phenomena. 4. Ordinarily, the mysteries of cognition do not affect the way people think, or form judgements. However, the problem of cognition has plagued philosophers for centuries beginning with Descartes. How can one be sure that what one percieves, and experiences is in fact real? Husserl attempted to deal with this problem. His foundation is influenced by Brentano's philosophy which introduces the concept of intentionality, which according to Husserl is the most important thing found in his ...
