The possibility of doubt as an imperative of criticism in Husserl's phenomenology

Abstract

In Husserl's phenomenology, the concept of evidence remains inextricably linked with the concept of the possibility of doubt, because this possibility is the condition for distinguishing between the apodictic nature of transcendental experience and the non-apodictic nature of the experience of the world. The phenomenological method is aimed at checking the degree of validity of all knowledge by searching for its possible alternatives or counterexamples, and if all previous attempts at such a search end in failure, we are dealing with knowledge of the rank of apodictic evidence, and there is always the possibility of eliminating all evidence in further course of the experience. As a consequence, lack of alternatives is not the final criterion of the evidence of knowledge.  The concept of the possibility of doubt is directly related to the concept of the possibility of negative verifiability, i.e. the possibility of falsification, and consists in constructing in the imagination possible counterexamples of evidence given things and states of affairs, so that the verifiability of philosophical theses is not empirical and takes place in the area of ​​possibility, not reality.