Phenomenology And The Foundations Of The Sciences

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.

This book starts with a representation of Husserl's idea of phenomenology as a foundational theory of science. The following essays elucidate the main features of the phenomenological method as worked out by Husserl in the course of the development of his philosophy - starting from merely 'descriptive' and going on to 'transcendental' and 'constitutive' phenomenology - in order to get access to the foundations of knowledge in general and of scientific knowledge in particular. Further essays deal with the Husserlian foundations of natural science, and the relations between phenomenology and psychology, as well as those between phenomenology and history. This second revised and enlarged edition - the first appeared in 1987 and was edited by Lee Hardy - contains two further essays: one deals with Husserl's never abandoned idea of phenomenology as a rigorous science and his further claim to restore phenomenological philosophy as 'First Philosophy', and the other one on the problem of crisis of the Western culture Husserl was concerned with during several periods of his life, demonstrates the actuality of his phenomenology even for philosophy of science in our times.