Edmund Husserl The Cutting Edge Phenomenological Method Philosophical Logic Ontology And Philosophy Of Science

This collection makes available, in one place, the very best essays on the founding father of phenomenology, reprinting key writings on Husserl's thought from the past seventy years. It draws together a range of writings, many otherwise inaccessible, that have been recognized as seminal contributions not only to an understanding of this great philosopher but also to the development of his phenomenology. The four volumes are arranged as follows: Volume I Classic essays from Husserl's assistants, students and earlier interlocutors. Including a selection of papers from such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Ricoeur and Levinas. Volume II Classic commentaries on Husserl's published works. "Covering the Logical Investigations," " Ideas I," " Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness," "" ""and" Formal and Transcendental Logic." Volumes III and IV Papers concentrating on particular aspects of Husserl's theory including: Husserl's account of mathematics and logic, his theory of science, the nature of phenomenological reduction, his account of perception and language, the theory of space and time, his phenomenology of imagination and empathy, the concept of the life-world and his epistemology.

called in question, then naturally no fact, science, could be presupposed. Thus Plato was set on the path to the pure idea. Not gathered from the de facto sciences but formative of pure norms, his dialectic of pure ideas-as we say, his logic or his theory of science - was called on to make genuine 1 science possible now for the first time, to guide its practice. And precisely in fulfilling this vocation the Platonic dialectic actually helped create sciences in the pregnant sense, sciences that were consciously sustained by the idea of logical science and sought to actualize it so far as possible. Such were the strict mathematics and natural science whose further developments at higher stages are our modem sciences. But the original relationship between logic and science has undergone a remarkable reversal in modem times. The sciences made themselves independent. Without being able to satisfy completely the spirit of critical self-justification, they fashioned extremely differentiated methods, whose fruitfulness, it is true, was practically certain, but whose productivity was not clarified by ultimate insight. They fashioned these methods, not indeed with the everyday man's naivete, but still with a na!ivete of a higher level, which abandoned the appeal to the pure idea, the justifying of method by pure principles, according to ultimate a priori possibilities and necessities.

In this widely hailed and long out of print classic of twentieth century philosophic commentary, Professor Farber explains the origin, development, and function of phenomenology with a view towards its significance for philosophy in general.The book offers a general account of Husserl and the background of his philosophy. The early chapters are devoted to his mathematical-philosophical and psychological studies. The refutation of psychologism is present in detail, together with the critical reaction to it. The development of his logical theories in the light of contemporary literature at the close of the 19th century is next considered. The main content of the six Logical Investigations follows, which contribute to the phenomenological elucidation of experience and knowledge. The phenomenological philosophy of logic as developed in Husserl's later writings is then introduced, followed by a discussion of the phenomenological method and its proper function. Farber makes clear his preference for phenomenology as a purely descriptive method and his opposition to have it serve as a last stronghold of metaphysics.Indispensable as groundwork for descriptive philosophical study, this book will deeply interest not only serious students of philosophy and psychology, but also those who are concerned with the philosophical aspects of mathematics, social and natural sciences, law and psychiatry.

Under the title “A Pure or Transcendental Phenomenology”, the work here presented seeks to found a new science—though, indeed, the whole course of philosophical development since Descartes has been preparing the way for it—a science covering a new field of experience, exclusively its own, that of “Transcendental Subjectivity”. Thus Transcendental Subjectivity does not signify the outcome of any speculative synthesis, but with its transcendental experiences, capacities, doings, is an absolutely independent realm of direct experience, although for reasons of an essential kind it has so far remained inaccessible. Transcendental experience in its theoretical and, at first, descriptive bearing, becomes available only through a radical alteration of that same dispensation under which an experience of the natural world runs its course, a readjustment of viewpoint which, as the method of approach to the sphere of transcendental phenomenology, is called “phenomenological reduction”.

This translation is concluded in our Readings in Twentieth Century Philosophy, (N. Y. , The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc. , 1963). We owe thanks to Professors W. D. Falk and William Hughes for helping us with the translation. We also owe thanks to Professor Herbert Spiegelberg, Dr. Walter Biemel and the Husser! Archives at Louvain for checking it and we are especially indebted to Professor Dorion Cairns, many of whose suggestions we incorporated in the final draft. WILLIAM P. ALSTON GEORGE NAKHNIKIAN January 1964 CONTENTS V Preface Introduction IX The train of thoughts in the lectures I Lecture I 13 Lecture II 22 Lecture III 33 Lecture IV 43 Lecture V 52 INTRODUCTION From April 26 to May 2, 1907, Husserl delivered five lectures in Gottingen. They introduce the main ideas of his later pheno menology, the one that goes beyond the phenomenology of the Logische Untersuchungen. These lectures and Husserl's summary of them entitled "The Train of Thoughts in the Lectures" were edited by Dr. Walter Biemel and first published in 1950 under the 1 title Die Idee der Phiinomenologie. Husserl wrote the summary on the night of the last lecture, not for formal delivery but for his own use. This accounts for the fact that the summary contains incomplete sentences. There are some discrepancies between Lecture V and the corresponding passages in the summary. We may suppose that the passages in the summary are a closer approximation to what Husserl wanted to say.

There is no author's introduction to Phenomenology and the Foundations of the Sciences,! either as published here in the first English translation or in the standard German edition, because its proper introduction is its companion volume: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. 2 The latter is the first book of Edmund Husserl's larger work: Ideas Toward a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, and is commonly referred to as Ideas I (or Ideen 1). The former is commonly called Ideen III. Between these two parts of the whole stands a third: Phenomeno 3 logical Investigations of Constitution, generally known as Ideen II. In this introduction the Roman numeral designations will be used, as well as the abbreviation PFS for the translation at hand. In many translation projects there is an initial problem of establish ing the text to be translated. That problem confronts translators of the books of Husserl's Ideas in different ways. The Ideas was written in 1912, during Husserl's years in Gottingen (1901-1916). Books I and II were extensively revised over nearly two decades and the changes were incorporated by the editors into the texts of the Husserliana editions of 1950 and 1952 respectively. Manuscripts of the various reworkings of the texts are preserved in the Husserl Archives, but for those unable to work there the only one directly available for Ideen II is the reconstructed one.

the Logische Untersuchungen,l phenomenology has been conceived as a substratum of empirical psychology, as a sphere comprising "imma nental" descriptions of psychical mental processes, a sphere compris ing descriptions that - so the immanence in question is understood - are strictly confined within the bounds of internal experience. It 2 would seem that my protest against this conception has been oflittle avail; and the added explanations, which sharply pinpointed at least some chief points of difference, either have not been understood or have been heedlessly pushed aside. Thus the replies directed against my criticism of psychological method are also quite negative because they miss the straightforward sense of my presentation. My criticism of psychological method did not at all deny the value of modern psychology, did not at all disparage the experimental work done by eminent men. Rather it laid bare certain, in the literal sense, radical defects of method upon the removal of which, in my opinion, must depend an elevation of psychology to a higher scientific level and an extraordinary amplification ofits field of work. Later an occasion will be found to say a few words about the unnecessary defences of psychology against my supposed "attacks.