Urban protophenomenon. Analytical rudiments for a phenomenological approach to the study of the perception of people in urban space

Abstract

Goethe – father of protophenomenology, phenomenology’s missing link and tutelary genius of this research– believed that “hypotheses are lullabies with which the teacher soothes his pupils to sleep”. (Del Solar, 1993). Indeed, for Goethe the key issue in science was always, above all, the establishment of a reverent and contemplative relationship with a clearly differentiated object of study. Taking this route – which as well as eliminating all speculation turns the hypothesis into a relatively redundant research tool – Goethe inaugurated the science of primordial phenomena or protophenomena, an achievement the profound consequences of which are only recently being fully and objectively assessed by the modern scientific establishment.