The Exposition of the Phenomenological Method in Cognitive Science: Naturalizing Phenomenology

This paper presents an overview of the most important projects of naturalisation of phenomenology, carried out in cognitive science: enactivism, neurophenomenology, mathematical reconstruction of the phenomenological description and front-loading phenomenology inspired primarily by the сhilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela and his associates - E. Thompson, A. Lutz, S. Gallagher, and others. The paper deals with the nature and possibility of naturalization of phenomenology as a way of reconciliation of transcendentalism and empiricism. For this purpose, the relations between natural science and phenomenology (in particular - the importance of epistemological priority of the latter) are highlighted, as they are set out in the phenomenological doctrine, and as they are specifically implemented in naturalization projects. The paper shows that partial naturalization implies the pragmatization of phenomenological reduction and the exclusion of the transcendental-epistemological aspect of phenomenology (essential for it) from consideration of scientists. The question of what the full naturalization of phenomenology should be based on the shortcomings of previous projects and internal opportunities for naturalization in the phenomenology of Husserl and Merlot-Ponti is considered.