Book Description

This is the first English translation of Husserliana XXIII, the volume in the critical edition of Edmund Husserl's works that gathers together a rich array of posthumous texts on representational consciousness. The lectures and sketches comprising Husserliana XXIII come from a period of enormous productivity and pivotal development in Husserl's philosophical life, extending from the years immediately preceding the Logical Investigations (1900-01) almost to the time of his retirement in 1928. They make available the most profound and comprehensive Husserlian account of image consciousnessthe awareness we have when we look at a picture or see a playand of its relation to art and the aesthetic. They explore phantasy in depth, and furnish nuanced accounts of perception and memory. They enrich the Husserlian analysis of time consciousness and offer a fascinating picture of the sometimes tortuous paths Husserl took in his efforts to comprehend how the forms of representation are constituted and how they are related to one another and to perception.

Book Description
Dermot Moran provides a lucid, engaging, and critical introduction to Edmund Husserl's philosophy, with specific emphasis on his development of phenomenology. This book is a comprehensive guide to Husserl's thought from its origins in nineteenth-century concerns with the nature of scientific knowledge and with psychologism, through his breakthrough discovery of phenomenology and his elucidation of the phenomenological method, to the late analyses of culture and the life-world. Husserl's complex ideas are presented in a clear and expert manner. Individual chapters explore Husserl's key texts including Philosophy of Arithmetic, Logical Investigations, Ideas I, Cartesian Meditations and Crisis of the European Sciences. In addition, Moran offers penetrating criticisms and evaluations of Husserl's achievement, including the contribution of his phenomenology to current philosophical debates concerning consciousness and the mind.

Edmund Husserl is an invaluable guide to understanding the thought of one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century. It will be helpful to students of contemporary philosophy, and to those interested in scientific, literary and cultural studies on the European continent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent overview of Husserl and Phenomenology
Unfortunately one recent historian of ideas when studying phenomenology commented that it was 'abstract, and had little relevance', particularly in relation to the staggering triumph of science in the 20th century.Sadly, Peter Watson (otherwise a terrific writer on intellectual history) totally missed the great importance of Husserl and phenomenology to 20th century philosophy, both the analytical tradition and on the Continent.

Moran, a Professor of Philosophy at Dublin in Ireland,corrects this misunderstanding with this excellent analysis of Husserl, his background, and his philosophical and phenomenological method.Husserl's 'school' drew countless of Europe's finest philosophers and students at the time, from Martin Hiedigger to Hannah Arendt to Edith Stein to Sartre, and influenced many other great continental philosophers such as Levinas, Gadamer, and Derrida (who wrote his doctorate on Husserl's study of geometry).

Husserl was initially a professional mathematician who became interested in Philosophy through his own interests in the foundations of mathematics, and the influence of the former Catholic priest Brentano.Husserl attempted to understand the foundations of mathematical objects and how we can attain certain mathematical truth.For Husserl, it made no sense to say mathematical truths were either pure platonic realities or fictions of the mind.The relationships were more complex, and Husserl's philosophy matured into a highly sophisticated form of idealism.

Husserl then claimed to found phenomeology, a method of philosophy which involves studying conciousness and its contents while suspending prejudice about the nature of the object studied.In his later life, Husserl adopted a metaphysical position not unlike that of Liebnitz, who divided reality into 'monads', self aware beings whose intersubjective ideality creates the world.

Husserl's philosophy is many sided and he and his followers applied it to everything from mathematics and science to literature, art, and the study of religion.Even now, it is becoming clear he is one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, and of interest to both philosophers who follow the Continental tradition from Europe, or the analytical method which dominates the English speaking world.

This work represents an excellent attempt to summarise Husserl's complex though, often expressed in difficult prose (as with many German philosophers) and is well worth studying. ... Read more

Book Description
This is a translation of Husserl's `Thing-lectures'(Dingvorlesung) of 1907, published posthumously in 1973. Thelectures deal with the constitution of the thing as a resextensa, an extended spatial structure filled with sensuousqualities and not yet with substantial or causal properties. Key tothis phenomenological account is the role of the kinaesthetic systemsof the body in the constitution of both three-dimensional space andthe thing in its identity, its manifold of possible movements, and itsposition in relation to the ego.
The `Thing-lectures' form part of the project of a `phenomenology andcritique of reason' announced in a general introduction to the samelectures and published separately as The Idea of Phenomenology.There for the first time the idea of a transcendental phenomenologybased on the principle of the phenomenological reduction was laid out.The lectures presented here thus form a striking example of theapplication of this idea to a concrete and fundamental field ofresearch. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Very concise, supremely competent
At first glance, it seems improbable that Zahavi's slim volume (the text is only 144 pages) could do justice to the voluminous, minutely argued, stylstically challenged, sometimes tortured work of Edmund Husserl.In fact such a suspicion is well-taken, since no single volume that anyone could carry is likely to exhaust all the possibilities for commentary that Husserl inspires.But it is hard for me to imagine that anyone could write a better introduction in terms of lucidly and precisely explicating the central themes of Husserl's phenomenology.Any normal mortal who is seriously interested in Husserl would profit from reading this book.

The themes that have given students the greatest difficulty are treated concisely and with an elegance of expression that belies a deep understanding on Zahavi's part.These include intentionality, the nature of evidence and "apodicticity," the transcendental reduction and epoche, the balance of idealism and realism in Husserl's thought, the transcendental ego and constitution, time consciousness, the body, intersubjectivity, and the life world.The discussion of idealism/realism is very good, to a great extent owing to Zahavi's encyclopedic knowledge of all of Husserl's work -- both the major works published during or shortly after his lifetime, and the Husserliana, Husserl's notes and lectures that have only been available fairly recently.The discussion of the body, particularly in its role as both subject and object, and the foundation for intersubjectivity, is also extremely useful.The discussion of intersubjectivity is nothing short of superb.And the discussion of the life world, and the complexities and subtleties that this idea interjects into Husserl's developing understanding of the phenomenological project, is quite valuable.

It is a measure of how good this book is that I like it in spite of fundamentally disagreeing with several of the author's central arguments about how Husserl should be interpreted.Zahavi is one of a growing number of revisionists that challenge the traditional interpretation of Husserl.The traditional interpretation is held by explicators and anthologists such as Dermot Moran (Introduction to Phenomenology, Routledge, 2000), and other philosophers such as Paul Ricouer (Husserl: an Analysis of his Phenomenology, Northwestern, 1967), Leszek Kolakowski (Husserl and the Search for Certitude, St. Augustine's Press, 1975), and Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, 1979).This tradition sees Husserl as the culmination of a philosophical line that begins with Descartes, touches upon the skepticism of Hume, and comes to its fullest statement in Kant.It emphasizes Husserl's debt to Descartes, his focus on subjectivity as the basis and origin of knowledge, a radical understanding of Husserl's doctrine of the ego's activity in constituting the given world, the foundationalist nature of Husserl's approach, and the consequent disjuncture between Husserl and the continental philosophers -- hermeneuticists, existentialists, and postmodernists -- that come after him.Not surprisingly, the revisionists tend to take opposing positions on each of these points.Examples of revisionist commentary in addition to Zahavi's are The Cambridge Companion to Husserl (Cambridge, 1995), and The New Husserl (Donn Welton, ed., Indiana, 2003).

Some correction of the received wisdom on Husserl is probably in order.It is possible to take an overly restrictive view of his treatment of subjectivity, for instance.But a couple of Zahavi's arguments just seem wrong to me.For instance, Zahavi argues that Husserl is not a foundationalist thinker.This is a difficult position to maintain in the face of Husserl's oft repeated claim that through phenomenology philosophy can finally fulfill its promise of a life lived according to reason alone.He also argues, against a number of other interpreters, that Husserl is able to escape the solipsism that is implied by the radical focus on subjectivity set forth at the beginning of the Crisis and the Cartesian Meditations, among other places.Here he points to the extensive attention that Husserl gives to "intersubjectivity," the objectivity leant to the external world by the overlapping of the consciousnesses of multiple subjects.My constitution of a particular object must take into account the consitution of the same object by others.But the problem for Husserl, as for Descartes before him, is not one of focus but of method.The question is how either, given the radical subjectivity of their initial methodology, can build a bridge to an objectively existing world.Descartes relies on God.Husserl offers a tortured doctrine of "the Other."Many, including some of Husserl's disciples, believe that neither approach is altogether satisfactory.

One of the well-taken points made by many of the revisionists, however, is that the relative neglect of Husserl in favor of later thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, and Gadamer is not justified.Husserl changed the face of continental philosophy, and gave much to analytical philosophy as well.Happily, because of his work among thers, Zahavi can say that "Husserl is no longer simply regarded as a surpassed chapter in the history of phenomenology."

Zahavi's Husserlian Phenomenology
Dan Zahavi is widely recognized for his numerous contributions to different areas of Husserlian scholarship and his expertise in these areas of research are reflected, as he admits freely, in the selection of themes with which the strengths of Husserl's phenomenology are introduced and exhibited. The themes of time, body, inter-subjectivity and life-world, with which Zahavi navigates the expansion of transcendental phenomenology in Husserl's later thinking, attest to the range of Zahavi's familiarity with Husserl's written corpus. His specialized work is, I think, best characterized by its intellectual dexterity, as it operates on and across different fronts simultaneously: correcting mistaken and uninformed views of Husserl's phenomenology, not only by way of scrupulous reconstructions of Husserl's arguments but also by way of original research into Husserl's vast Nachlaß; reflecting on and engaging with recent trends in Husserlian scholarship, not only on both sides of the Atlantic but also on both sides of the Rhine; and assessing the defining claims of Husserlian phenomenology with an ear for and an openness to contemporary discussions in analytic philosophy of mind and epistemology. All of these strengths of Zahavi's specialized studies richly inform Husserl's Phenomenology, which confidently weaves a course through sympathetic reconstructions of key Husserlian arguments, the dismantling of widespread misconceptions afflicting Husserlian phenomenology, redressing apparent inconsistencies in Husserl's views and staking out Husserl's positions vis-à-vis contemporary debates. Through-out, Zahavi's discussion of Husserl's concepts expertly attains what has often eluded other notable introductions to phenomenology: a balance between the complex talk of phenomenology, the continual shifting and development of Husserl's views, and the teasing out of arguments in an accessible manner that speaks to a broad range of philosophical talent, and not just to those long initiated to the esoteric domain of the phenomenological reduction. Striking a perfect balance is perhaps an impossible ideal; but in the form of Zahavi's introduction, we have a text that remains readable from beginning to end that does not, however, shy away from technical discussions nor from wrestling with the profounder issues that define the enduring significance of Husserl's phenomenology. An introduction should not only introduce the basic concepts and arguments that define a philosophy, it should also introduce readers to what is philosophically at stake in it-both tasks are executed with aplomb in Husserl's Phenomenology.

In the first section, `The Early Husserl: Logic, Epistemology, and Intentionality,' we are introduced to Husserl's phenomenology in the form of an introduction to the central concept of intentionality, as first developed in the Logical Investigations. Zahavi rightly seizes on the concept of intentionality as a vehicle with which to present the basic orientation of Husserl's phenomenology but also as providing the central plot to the unfolding of the phenomenological drama. The more notable moments in this first section are an especially succinct and lucid account of Husserl's tripartite distinction of act, meaning, and object and a well-tempered appraisal of phenomenology's metaphysical neutrality. The second section, `Husserl's Turn to Transcendental Philosophy: Epoché, Reduction, and Transcendental Idealism,' sets Husserl's controversial "transcendental turn" in the context of unresolved ambiguities in Husserl's early conception of intentionality. The ambiguous status of the intentional correlate coupled with the basic "anti-metaphysical" orientation of phenomenology motivates, for Zahavi, Husserl's transcendental turn. The novel methodological instruments of epoché and reduction and the decisive, if nonetheless ambiguous concept of the noema are well presented in this section and Zahavi here convincingly argues how interpretative questions surrounding the concept of noema are crucial for deciding and clarifying the sense in which Husserl's brand of transcendental idealism over-comes a series of traditional distinctions: idealism / realism; internalism / externalism; subject / object. In the process of following the motivation and strategy of Husserl's transcendental turn, a number of widespread misunderstandings of Husserl's phenomenology (mainly: the overly simplistic "Cartesian" image of Husserl) are confidently undone on the strength of explaining the relationship between the "Cartesian and Ontological" ways to the reduction. This section ends with an extremely truncated report of Husserl's notion of constitution that unhesitatingly opts for a Heideggerian interpretation of constitution as a "process of disclosing." In the final and to my mind best section of the book, `The Later Husserl: Time, Body, Intersubjectivity, and Lifeworld,' a suggestion made at the end of the second section is expanded into a panoramic view of the expansion of transcendental phenomenology. At the end of the second section, Zahavi claimed that "constitution" is not a one-sided affair for Husserl involving a solitary subjectivity, but rather must involve what Zahavi terms the three "transcendental constituents" of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and world. Each of the four themes treated in this third section is meant to further articulate in detail the significance of this proposal and the entire section is subsumed under the undisputable claim that Husserl's later thinking is characterized by an expansion of the transcendental domain-a process largely motivated by the inclusion of inter-subjectivity and world into the nexus of constitution. Zahavi's nimble discussion of his four themes covers much complicated ground in an expertly manner. However, his treatment of intersubjectivity is, to my mind, the high-point of this section; his argument that there is not one but at least three concepts of intersubjectivity coupled with his claim that Husserl does not regard the intersubjective transformation of transcendental philosophy as implicating a rejection of subjectivity but, rather, its radicalization, are compellingly argued. On the basis of Zahavi's third section alone, we would be convinced that Husserl is not a "surpassed chapter in the history of phenomenology." Taking all three sections of Husserl's Phenomenology together, we can also no longer avoid recognizing that Husserl is equally not a surpassed chapter in the history of philosophy.

Dan Zahavi's Husserlian Phenomenology is unquestionably one of the most accessible and engaging introductions to Husserl's complex thinking. Undergraduates at any level of study as well as individuals versed in other fields of philosophy would do themselves well to read this book.

Great Husserl introduction
The book is concise, clear, and up to date. The best introduction to Husserl currently available. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

POSSIBLY THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF THE 20th CENTURY
I am surprised that there have been no reviews for this splendid book. Husserl's IDEASis a significant book in the history of human thought and Western philosophy, any student of philosophy or psychology would do themselfs a favor by reading this very important book. It is not my intention to write a Cliff's notes review regarding the content of this book, but the modern reader will find that Husserl's ideas makes points that expand on Kant's CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. Ideas refers to transcendental phenomenonlgy, a school of thought that placeshuman experience into a realm of personal understanding attained through a series of conceptual reductions. A trained phenomenologist (sic.) should be able to reduce objects of experience to their fundamental concepts, then remove these concepts to understand the essential features of human experience. This "PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION" is applicable to all phenomena, and when applied properly this technique isolates human experience to certain core concepts that are universal to all phenomena irregardless of space and time. I believe that Husserl's Ideas is an invaluble contribution to modern psychology, and should be required reading for all students in a liberal arts program. ... Read more

Book Description
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. ... Read more

Book Description
This volume presents the English translations of texts byEdmund Husserl, and some by Martin Heidegger, that date from 1927through to 1931. Most notably, the volume contains Englishtranslations of (a) all the drafts of - as well as Heidegger'scontributions to - Husserl's ill-fated article `Phenomenology'- a garbled version of which was published in theEncyclopaedia Britannica in 1929; (b) Husserl's `AmsterdamLectures', delivered in 1928; (c) the copious notes that Husserl wrotein the margins of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit and Kant und dasProblem der Metaphysik; and (d) Husserl's lecture`Phänomenologie und Anthropologie', delivered in 1931.
Ably edited, translated, and introduced by two leading scholars, thesetexts as a whole document Husserl's thinking as he approachedretirement from teaching and also shed light on the philosophicalchasm that was widening at the time between Husserl and Heidegger. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Phenomenological Confrontations
In the clash with Heidegger, Husserl's phenomenology came into close contact with a devisive bug named "intersubjectivity". After dealing with the differences inherent in their two positions, Husserldecided that the only way to remedy the situation, and thereforephenomenology, was to begin work on the phenomenological analytic ofethics, or how to found the possibility of an ethics (this comes thorugh inthe Amsterdam lectures).

To the book's credit, it demonstrates clearlythat where Heidegger lived a sum ergo cogito, Husserl rather thought thecogito ergo sum, all the way through to its "liminal" zone, theborder. This began the confrontation, and would also soon end it. Thus someof the decisive problems addressed in this Encyclopedia Brittanica bookwith regards to phenomenology are: history, the subject, time, the other,the possibility of phenomenology with respect to the position on time, etc.Derrida would indeed, as another reviewer has unwittingly pointed out,characterize some of these problems as the break between "thelaugh" and the laser-fine gaze of reason. That is, if time is aproblem for phenomenology in Husserl's sense, one must laugh at thepossibility of phenomenology. If it is rather a problem in Heidegger'ssense, then one must phenomenologically laugh (see "An Intro toHusserl's 'Origin of Geometry'")...Well worth the money either way.

a laugh riot
Edmund Husserl was the leading comedic writer of his time... This book is a strong example of his work and sheds new light on the relationship with his moronic sidekick, Martin Heidegger. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Edmund Husserl's work is a cornerstone of Continental philosophy and the phenomenological tradition. Husserl: A Guide for the Perplexed addresses directly those major points of difficulty faced by students of Husserl and leads them expertly through the maze of complex ideas and language. The book builds up a comprehensive and authoritative overview of his thought and, more broadly, of phenomenology itself.Divided into three parts, the text covers the central tenets of phenomenology, Husserl's work on consciousness, and key philosophical topics in Husserl, including psychologism, intersubjectivity, the lifeworld and the crisis of the sciences.

Customer Reviews (1)

An Important Translation, Even If Incomplete
Cohen's translation includes many of Levinas' important essays on Husserl, and holds a special place in Levinas scholarship for this reason.The essays in the book range from the 1930s to the 1980s, so it is useful for tracking the development of Levinas' reading of Husserl over the years.More important, the articles in this book show that for Levinas phenomenology isn't something to "escape" but is to be taken seriously.We can see this much in his two articles from 1959, "Reflections on Phenomenological Technique" and "The Ruin of Representation".As a book on Levinas' relation to Husserl, this work is indispensable.

However, this English translation is not without its problems.The full title of the French publication translates as _Discovering Existence with Husserl and Heidegger_ and the book itself contains articles on both Husserl and Heidegger.The translator Richard A. Cohen modifies the book's title and most of the articles on Heidegger are not included in the translation.Why would a translator modify the title of such an important book in Levinas' oeuvre and then omit many of its articles? In his foreword Cohen does not give an answer.It turns out, then, that this translation does not give a full picture of Levinas' relation to phenomenology, for Levinas' reading of Husserl is in many ways influenced by Heidegger.

Although the translation is incomplete, it is still important because it contains articles by Levinas that have not been published elsewhere in English. ... Read more

Book Description
Husserl has enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years and the Cartesian Meditations is perhaps his most widely read text. The book is an introduction to Husserl's phenomenology and is based on Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. Husserl attempts to show how Descartes discovered the "transcendental" perspective which is essential to any genuine philosophy.

Until now there has never been a secondary text on this important and influential work on philosophy. This book, in conjunction with the text itself, will serve as a proper introduction to Husserlian phenomenology.

A.D. Smith introduces and assesses the key concepts that arise in the book in clear and engaging ways. His style is highly accessible and suitable for anyone coming to the Cartesian Meditations for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent new book which fills a mighty scholarship gap
Edmund Husserl is really an unsung hero in early twentieth century philosophy. His fundfamental importance for such thinkers as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty should in and of itself be cause for Husserl's popular rehabilitation; this is the book to accomplish just that.

Part of a new publishing venture Routledge press has initiated in order to produce introductory studies on important philosophers (the backlist so far includes thinkers from Plato to the later Heidegger) which are at the same time vital contributions to contemporary scholarship, this volume on Husserl is the first secondary text to address Husserl's Cartesian Meditations, a breathtaking lapse if you think about it, since authors seldom get taught in introductory classes in primary text alone. Husserl's students, intellectual progeny, and even enemies have really been the focus of Husserl studies (much like Irenaeus was the focus of gnostic studies until the full publication of the Nag Hammadi documents several years ago), and anyone wanting an introduction to Husserl's thought had to do the best they could. His work, and the Cartesian Meditations in particular, has been and is deserving of competent, thoughtful commentary, and Smith's volume neatly fits the bill. It is a deep and detailed investigation of the genesis of Husserl's thinking (in itself a phenomenological "to the thing itself" kind of approach), and almost a line-by-line commentary on the ideas, problems, and contributions of Husserl's book which never fails to remember that it is aimed at newcomers as well as specialists. Plainly put, it is no longer responsible to teach Husserl without this volume, and no class on existentialism, phenomenology, or deconstruction should proceed without it, either.

The person seeking to understand Husserl's masterwork should begin with the Cartesian Meditations in one hand and this volume in the other. Incidentally, any doctoral students responsible for the Cartesian Meditations in general exams without the benefit of a faculty that actually teaches Husserl (sadly, a rather common situation)owes Smith a heartfelt thank-you card. It is a book that makes anyone with Husserlian questions happy. It is not the final word on Husserl's work, but thankfully, it is a very important first word. ... Read more