Wojtyła and Husserl: A Methodological Comparison

Abstract

The article compares the methodology proposed by Karol Wotyła in Person and action with the methodology of Husserl as developed in Logical Investigations and Ideas I. The analysis shows relevant common factors but also important differences in the four topics analyzed : experience, epojé, essences or eidos and the intuition of essences. For Wojtyła, experience is the methodological departing-point, meanwhile Husserl uses the intuition of essences as the basis for phenomenology ; the epojé, a key concept in the phenomenological method, is never employed by Wojtyła ; Wojtyła rejects the apriorical knowledge and, finally, to get universal knowledge employs an induction of Aristotelian type instead of the phenomenological intuition of essences. These differences show the originality of Wojtyła’s method and the possibility of using it as a specific methodology for philosophical personalism.