Critically compare and contrast the methods and aims of Husserls epoch with Descartes method of doubt - Essay Example

Anything that surpasses this method is considered as certain by Descartes. For him, the universe fails to survive this method at this juncture. Rather, the only thing that seems to survive according to Descartes is a pure individuality of his cogitations. It is mainly for this that he has perceived as a form of unconditionally unquestionable survival (Taylor, 2009). Descartes perceives this as indubitable since in phrases such as “I think” or “I doubt” there exists a being that performs the act of thinking or doubting.

In this regard, it would be contradictory for one to doubt of their existence since one must first exists in order to doubt. It is through this ego, as well as its guiding tenets that an objective universe can be deduced. In contrast, Husserl queries whether Descartes’ postulations are worth an investigation because they may not augur well with the current time. Indeed, Husserl acknowledges that those sciences that ought to be grounded in absolute certainty by Descartes have accorded little attention to them.

It is notable that in the recent times, the sciences have become faced with several obscurities of their very foundation. By regressing back to concepts of pure ego, Descartes had developed a new form of philosophy that tends to strive towards a situation where true self may be demonstrated in a genuine science. According to Husserl, the failure by Descartes to unify philosophy as a science can be discerned in the modern-day philosophies. Rather than a unitary philosophy, there is a philosophical literature that has superseded all boundaries without coherence.

One notable difference in Husserl’s epoch is that as a philosophizing ego, he does not regard the world or other objects as existing. Instead, he only accepts them as mere phenomena. Because these objects are not apodictic, he resorts to parenthesizing of putting them aside in order to perceive what can be left.