raw_thought wrote:Phenomenology is the study of what we refer to when.we use first person narratives. ...
I take it as providing a description of subjective experience that all can agree to.
Materialists deny first person narratives. ...
No they don't, they deny that non-physical explanations explain anything.
For example, if I bracket (a phenomenological term) all preconceptions, I am dealing with what the experience feels like (qualia).
Ever managed to achieve Husserl's reduction? I doubt it as he gave no techniques to achieve such a state, the closest you'll get is the Buddhists meditation and they claim that when you do so you find no subjectivity exists.
Another example, a phenomonologist will analize a cup. All the preconceptions (that it is a cup, used for drinking etc) are bracketed out, leaving only the experience.
You're just talking about sensation and that can all be explained by being a body with senses in an external world. What explanation can you give that does not involve material or physical causes?