Eli5: what exactly is phenomenology
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Phenomenology is the area of philosophy where we think in more detail about what it means if we say we’ve experienced something. It discusses the ways we think about our lived experiences, and connect those experiences to the broader world.
For example, we often talk about truth as something that is objectively real. But phenomenology points out that in our actual day to day experiences, what we perceive as objective reality can be just the same thing as whatever we perceive as intersubjectively true, i.e., when multiple people subjectively agree on a certain idea.
This helps explain why it can be so hard for us to separate opinions from facts. When lots of people all agree with a certain opinion, this intersubjective consensus can seem like objective truth. It seems this way, even if the opinion isn’t true; the intersubjective consensus creates an appearance of objective reality.
(Phenomenology doesn’t have to deny the reality of objective reality; it’s just a philosophical area that deals with lived experience on its own terms.)
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