1 Mabaquiao, Napoleon. 2013. Of essences and being: A look at the two faces of phenomenology. In Exploring the philosophical terrain, ed. Elenita Garcia. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc., pp. 105- 123. OF ESSENCES AND BEING: A LOOK AT THE TWO FACES OF PHENOMENOLOGY Napoleon M. Mabaquiao, Jr. INTRODUCTION As the philosopher who first developed phenomenology into a generally coherent philosophical system—a philosophical system with its own goal and method, Edmund Husserl is regarded as the father of phenomenology. But what has turned phenomenology into a major philosophical movement was a kind of phenomenology that was radically different from what Husserl developed, and which, in fact, developed partly as a critical reaction to Husserl’s brand of phenomenology. This other kind of phenomenology refers to the kind of phenomenology developed by the philosopher Martin Heidegger in his very influential book, Being and time (1962). Heideggerian phenomenology provided the grounds for the development of two other brands of phenomenology that have become dominant in continental philosophy; namely, existential phenomenology 1 , whose followers include Jean- Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and phenomenological hermeneutics (or hermeneutical phenomenology), whose followers include Hans George Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. In addition, leading figures in postmodern philosophy, another philosophical movement in continental philosophy that is presently enjoying popularity, have acknowledged the important contributions of Heideggerian phenomenology to its development. This essay aims to give an overview of phenomenology by examining the contrast between Husserlian phenomenology 2 and Heideggerian phenomenology. The discussion begins with an examination of the goal and method of Husserlian phenomenology and then proceeds with an examination of Heidegger’s own version of the goal and method of phenomenology. I. KNOWLEDGE OF THE ESSENCES The basic goal of phenomenology, for Husserl, is to discover knowledge of the highest kind, or a kind of knowledge that is absolutely certain (meaning, free of any possible doubt) and completely objective (meaning, free of any form of biases and unproven assumptions). Husserl technically calls this kind of knowledge as knowledge of the essences or of pure