Transcendental phenomenological axiology and axiological reduction

Abstract

The article discusses the transcendental phenomenological method in axiology and axiological reduction as a fundamental cognitive operation of this approach. Unlike positive disciplines based on value methodology, axiology per se is a philosophical theory of values as essences subject to phenomenological investigation. Moreover, eidetic phenomenological description is not enough to fully capture the value or the value act, because of the lack of direct experience of pure consciousness. To access this type of consciousness, one has to perform the phenomenological reduction described by E. Husserl as part of his transcendental phenomenology. In comparison with the phenomenological axiology proposed by M. Scheler, the transcendental approach reveals more advantages due to the greater clarity of terminology and the detailed analysis (especially true for such concepts as evidence, intentionality, and the subject of value acts). The transcendental approach also takes into account the immanent, transcendent as well as the transcendental nature of values and allows us to go directly from the description of value as an essence to the analysis of value acts, values as evidence of consciousness and constructs of the actual world. Axiological reduction is a cognitive operation that reveals all possible aspects of values as phenomena. Similarly to eidetic and transcendental reduction, it, firstly, does not exclude value from the phenomenologist’s perspective, and, secondly, does not reduce all possible objects of phenomenological consideration to values. On top of that, it focuses on values as part of any act and content of consciousness.