Epoché and Protoexistence: Toward a Genetic Phenomenology of Experiential Emergence

This theoretical-conceptual essay reconsiders epoché in qualitative phenomenological research and its relation to experiential emergence. Rather than a one-time technique of bracketing, epoché is conceptualized as a sustained discipline of epistemic suspension, attentional reorientation, and phenomenological restraint. On this basis, protoexistence is reformulated as a heuristic for incomplete experiential stabilization rather than as a pre-subjective, pre-intentional, or pre-temporal domain. It refers to configurations in which intentionality, self-relatedness, embodiment, affectivity, and temporality remain operative but are weakly coordinated, unstable, or undergoing reorganization. This formulation distinguishes experiential instability from the absence of structure and situates protoexistence in continuity with genetic phenomenology. The article concludes by outlining methodological safeguards and the implications of this framework for investigating unstable or emerging forms of lived experience.