Phenomenology, Description, Interpretation

In Being and Time, the primary mode of subjective experience is called 'Understanding', not 'Consciousness', its analogue in most other Phenomenological studies.. Furthermore, Understanding is interpretative for Heidegger, though he reserves 'Interpretation' for more specialized purposes. That is, the basic encounter with an object is constituted by an appropriation of the object, by the subject, in terms of some more general context, instrumental, according to Heidegger, though any figure-ground structuring might also qualify as interpretive. Now, the Phenomenological method is usually characterized as 'description', but the more precise Husserlian classification is 'eidetic intuition', i. e. empirical objects may be the source material for its descriptions, but the proper objects of its gaze are the essences that are revealed therein. However, Heidegger plainly categorizes eidetic intuition as Understanding. Hence, according to Heidegger himself, Phenomenological 'description' is actually interpretive. Indeed, Being and Time interprets lived experience in terms of Temporal structures; Being and Nothingness, in terms of In-itself and For-itself; and Phenomenology of Perception, in terms of the relation between Perception and Motility. So, while each might purport to let the things themselves be, each is an act of appropriation by its author.