Abstract

This dissertation deals with the ways in which Husserl and Heidegger as phenomenologists are guided by the commitment to a logical theory of science. It considers the internal relationship between, respectively, Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology and a conception of logic that would link phenomenological philosophy of logic to the contemporary definition of this discipline. The dramatic transition in the modern history of logic is played out explicitly in Husserl's conception of formal theory of science, which hinges on his idea of formal ontology, and implicitly in Heidegger's conception of a fundamental ontology that would ultimately engender a new idea of logic. Their respective conceptions of formal and fundamental ontology intersect in the way they both understand "world" as phenomenological pre-condition for any higher level meaning constitution. The synthetic structure of worldly experience serves as protological basis for any formal- or natural-linguistic interpretation of scientific activity. In short, it is the way that Husserl and Heidegger understand the relationship between logic and ontology that allows them to work within the philosophical presuppositions of modern logic and eventually to generate a critique that points beyond phenomenology to this tradition---the contemporary history of logic from meta-mathematics to philosophy of language. ;Beginning with a methodological discussion of phenomenological meaning-investigation, i.e. Besinnung, the dissertation then proceeds from Husserl's initial engagement with formal logic and mathematics up to a conception of logic that would eventually make possible a dialogue between Heidegger and more recent philosophy of language. Between Husserl and Heidegger, it is the very object of logic that is at stake, i.e. whether logic is concerned primarily with the interpretation of formal-theoretical systems or with the analysis of discourse understood in terms of natural language. Yet reading Husserl and Heidegger through the phenomenology of logic also sketches a possibility for reading them together that has gone largely unexplored. Despite the ways in which their respective projects in phenomenology are often viewed as incommensurable, their phenomenology of logic leads back to a common commitment to a proto-logical conception of meaning based in principles of passive constitution.