With or without phenomena? Phenomenology between Stumpf and Husserl

Abstract This article intends to identify what is at stake in Stumpf’s critical assessment of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as a “phenomenology without phenomena”. After reconstructing the main arguments through which these two conceptions of phenomenology argue against each other, it is argued that the main issue of this debate concerns the value that is attributed to the idea of intentionality in the definition of the phenomenological program, and consequently in the very definition of the “phenomenon”. Ultimately, the question risen is that of the relationship between phenomenology and philosophy itself, depending on whether phenomenology is conceived as a propedeutic science (Stumpf) or as a fundamental science (Husserl).