Abstract

This thesis argues that phenomenology provides the foundation to the Human Sciences, and that the concrete foundation to interpretative anthropology consists of the relation between Husserlian phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology. This relation, in its turn, is constituted by the phenomenology presuppositions hermeneutics and the hermeneutic presuppostitions of phenomenology. ;The first part is divided into three main diversions. This first presents a panoramic view of both the Mayan world and the history of cultural anthropology. The second and third consist of an application of Clifford Geertz's method to what I call the visible and invisible cultural systems. This first part is called "Description" because it is the anthropological description of cultural meaning. ;The second part is divided into two divisions. The first intends to show how Husserlian phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology belong to each other. The second one treats the problem of how phenomenology describes the unity of experience showing the fundamental relations between the guiding threads of intentionality and intuition. This part is called "Reflection" because it consists of the philosophical meditation upon the transcendental foundations of science. ;The third and last part is divided into three divisions. The first puts together our long detour through intentionality and intuition, and tries to pose the elements of a phenomenology of experience. The second thematizes the role of the Other in the construction of a true phenomenological ontology. The Other is seen here from the viewpoint of Heidegger's Being-in-the-world and hermeneutics description of how metaphor shows the co-constitution of the world itself. Finally, the third is a reflection of how these issues could be thematized through the concept of the Lebenswelt