physicist, make a claim on him, [and] play a meaningful role in his factical life. For this reason, though, they enter right into a context of meaningfulness. What shows itself therein, once again, is the boundlessness of the dominion of factical experiencing because it is not "fitted" to anything. Anything and everything can become accessible. In order to characterize "meaningfulness" more closely, we cannot proceed differently than to separate out everything that it is not.
*
[218]
The dismissed tendencies are not accidental. The separation is connected to the view of the phenomenon itself. I must already have the phenomenon before I can "counter-see." Nevertheless, the "no" of separation has a productive meaning, since one thereby first realizes the specific phenomenological situation. The slowness and difficulty of this method cannot form any objection against the sense of phenomenology. As evident as the apprehended phenomena are, the sequence of steps along the way that lead to its view is just as difficult to find, and it is just as difficult to describe and express.—The phenomenologically visible may not be reinterpreted into the phenomenologically given. As a phenomenologist e.g. I apprehend the improminent and I thereby just make it prominent, although it lies improminently in the phenomenon. I should not be surprised that I do not "see" the improminent meaningfulness. That which is necessary in its sense but improminent and thus not visible is to be distinguished from that which is phenomenologically visible.
(These are already phenomenological considerations. But they are not serving as a rational foundation for us here. We come upon them in our descriptions, but we are not presupposing that they are valid for and before our description.)
In what way do we now come to the sense of the consciousness of reality? In such a way that we ask if there are possible modifications in factical experience that indicate it.
In factical experience, I can ponder mindfully, I can bring what is experienced to my consciousness. I can report about it, I can talk about it with another person.—The taking-notice and the giving-notice are particular
164 BASIC PROBLEMS OF PHENOMENOLOGY