Phenomenology is best understood as a radical anti-traditional style of philosophising, which emphasises to get to the truth of matters, to describe phenomena, in the broadest sense as whatever appears in the manner in which it appears, that is as it manifests itself to consciousness, to the experiencer. As such phenomenology’s first step is to seek to avoid all misconstructions and impositions placed on experience in advance, whether these are drawn from religious or cultural traditions, from everyday common sense, or indeed, from science itself. Explanations are not to be imposed before the phenomena have been understood from within.

Dermot moran