Eugen Fink was Edmund Husserl’s research assistant during the last decade of the renowned phenomenologist’s life, a period in which Husserl’s philosophical ideas were radically recast. In this landmark book, Ronald Bruzina shows that Fink was actually a collaborator with Husserl, contributing indispensable elements to their common enterprise. Drawing on hundreds of hitherto unknown notes and drafts by Fink, Bruzina highlights the scope and depth of his theories and critiques. He places these philosophical formulations in their historical setting, organizes them (...) around such key themes as the world, time, life, and the concept and methodological place of the “meontic,” and demonstrates that they were a pivotal impetus for the renewing of “regress to the origins” in transcendental-constitutive phenomenology. (shrink)

[1.] Husserl-Studien -- 2. Bd. Studien zur Phänomenologie der Epoché.

Introduction -- Stating the problem -- The question of the essence of subjectivity and its methodical exploitation -- The natural world -- A sketch of a philosophy of language and speech -- Conclusion.

Dastur is well respected in France and Europe for her mastery of phenomenology as a movement and her clear and cogent explications of phenomenology in movement. These qualities are on display in this remarkable set of essays. The book is organized into four areas of inquiry: Language and Logic, Ego and Other, Temporality and History,and Finitude and Mortality. In each, Dastur guides the reader through a series of phenomenological questions that also serve to call phenomenology itself into question, testing its (...) limits and pushing it in newdirections. Taking a cue from Merleau-Ponty, Dastur sees phenomenology not as a doctrine, a catalogue of concepts and catchphrases authored by a single thinker, but rather as a movement in which several thinkers participate, each one contributing to and inflecting the development of the movement in unique ways. She thus draws inspiration from Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Fink, and Patocka, moving with ease from one thinker's conceptual vocabulary and outlook to the next's, feeling at home in each, and communicating their central ideas with clarity.Through her critical and productive dialogue with multiple phenomenological thinkers, Dastur concisely shows one thinker's debts to and departures from another and reveals the limits of one's approach while highlighting the innovation of another's. She does this judiciously, without choosing sides, because for her, phenomenology is above all a way of thinking through a problem and practicing a method. The fecundity of the movement is appreciated only by participating in it--it has always thought of itself as philosophical research undertaken by and through a community of thinkers who share certain fundamental questions and ways of approaching those questions, even if their responses to these questions often differ. In this regard, Dastur is both one of the clearest guides to phenomenology and one of France's most able practitioners of phenomenology. (shrink)

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others.

The "Cartesian Meditations" translation is based primarily on the printed text, edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume of Husserliana: Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ISBN 90-247-0214-3. Most of Husserl's emendations, as given in the Appendix to that volume, have been treated as if they were part of the text. The others have been translated in footnotes. Secondary consideration has been given to a typescript (cited as "Typescript C") on which Husserl wrote in 1933: "Cartes. Meditationen (...) / Originaltext 1929 / E. Husserl / für Dorion Cairns". Its use of emphasis and quotation marks conforms more closely to Husserl’s practice, as exemplified in works published during his lifetime. In this respect the translation usually follows Typescript C. Moreover, some of the variant readings n this typescript are preferable and have been used as the basis for the translation. Where that is the case, the published text is given or translated in a foornote. The published text and Typescript C have been compared with the French translation by Gabrielle Pfeiffer and Emmanuel Levinas (Paris, Armand Collin, 1931). The use of emphasis and quotation marks in the French translation corresponds more closely to that in Typescript C than to that in the published text. Often, where the wording of the published text and that of Typescript C differ, the French translation indicates that it was based on a text that corresponded more closely to one or the other – usually to Typescript C. In such cases the French translation has been quoted or cited in a foornote. (shrink)

In this book, which remained unfinished at his death, Husserl attempts to forge a union between phenomenology and existentialism.

What makes this work so important is that it returned the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato.

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others.

As a teaching text, The Idea of Phenomenology is ideal: it is brief, it is unencumbered by the technical terminology of Husserl's later work, it bears a clear ...

In this paper I sketch a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s fundamental concept of “attitude”. I first explore Husserl’s account with respect to the three faculties of intellect, will, and emotivity [Gemüt], which also define the three basic kinds of attitude. The attitude assumed by the subject plays at this level the important role of articulating and unifying, according to an overall direction, various underlying moments of a complex act. I then focus on the specific intellectual, viz. cognitive attitudes and highlight (...) the difference between the naturalistic attitude (which characterizes the natural sciences) and the personalistic attitude (which characterizes the human sciences). I then consider the notion of the natural attitude and argue that the personalistic attitude represents the systematic core of it. The natural attitude may be defined as the human attitude, i.e., as the attitude in which subjects posit themselves exclusively as human subjects belonging to the world , which is itself unceasingly posited as being. In the final part of the paper I explore the function of the phenomenological reduction insofar as it opens up a possibility of self-understanding that breaks with the natural, human self-apprehension and discloses subjectivity in its transcendental dimension. This opens up a radically new attitude, the phenomenological, which should not be confused with a first-person perspective within the framework of the natural attitude. (shrink)

In this article the author attempts to establish whether we can find a “theory of appearance” in the philosophy of Jan Patočka. The “appearance” for Patočka is basically composed of two elements. First there is a “primeval movement” which accounts for an infinite possibility of phenomena. The second element is the relation of this movement with an “addressee”, the subjectivity. If we begin to analyse the unity of these two elements we fundamentally come across three problems: what is it that (...) appears, when appearance presupposes a certain totality of appearance; how does this total appearance come forth; and, finally, is this whole “structure of appearance” taken as a free movement, kept once and for all within the boundaries of phenomenology, which is founded on a precise and positive term of “appearance” — or do we have to stipulate a special “experience” as the starting point of a phenomenology, which accepts the abyssal impossibility to control its frame? (shrink)

In this article the author attempts to establish whether we can find a “theory of appearance” in the philosophy of Jan Patočka. The “appearance” for Patočka is basically composed of two elements. First there is a “primeval movement” which accounts for an infinite possibility of phenomena. The second element is the relation of this movement with an “addressee”, the subjectivity. If we begin to analyse the unity of these two elements we fundamentally come across three problems: what is it that (...) appears, when appearance presupposes a certain totality of appearance; how does this total appearance come forth; and, finally, is this whole “structure of appearance” taken as a free movement, kept once and for all within the boundaries of phenomenology, which is founded on a precise and positive term of “appearance” — or do we have to stipulate a special “experience” as the starting point of a phenomenology, which accepts the abyssal impossibility to control its frame? (shrink)

In this article the author attempts to establish whether we can find a “theory of appearance” in the philosophy of Jan Patočka. The “appearance” for Patočka is basically composed of two elements. First there is a “primeval movement” which accounts for an infinite possibility of phenomena. The second element is the relation of this movement with an “addressee”, the subjectivity. If we begin to analyse the unity of these two elements we fundamentally come across three problems: what is it that (...) appears, when appearance presupposes a certain totality of appearance; how does this total appearance come forth; and, finally, is this whole “structure of appearance” taken as a free movement, kept once and for all within the boundaries of phenomenology, which is founded on a precise and positive term of “appearance” — or do we have to stipulate a special “experience” as the starting point of a phenomenology, which accepts the abyssal impossibility to control its frame? (shrink)

The article presents the transcendental reduction as a type of questioning, and by so doing formulates the problem of the structure and motivation of reduction. Transcendental questioning is presented as a permanent formulation and reformulation of questions, which, it is argued, make it possible to overcome the naïveté of the natural attitude. However, the phenomenologist does not overcome naïveté in the sense of excluding it; instead, he is conscious of it. It is argued that one should understand transcendental questioning as (...) a practical activity that makes the phenomenologist responsible for knowledge by leading toward the essence, which seems to be “unquestionable.”. (shrink)

In the last decade of his life (from 1928 to 1938), Husserl sought to develop a new understanding of his transcendental phenomenology (in publications such as Cartesian Meditations, Formal and Transcendental Logic, and the Crisis) in order to combat misconceptions of phenomenology then current (chief among which was Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology as articulated in Being and Time). During this period, Husserl had an assistant and collaborator, Eugen Fink, who sought not only to be midwife to the birth of Husserl’s own (...) ideas but who also wanted to mediate between Husserl and Heidegger. As a result of the Fink- Husserl collaboration there appeared a rich flow of works that testify to the depth with which transcendental phenomenology had been rethought. Bruzina is the chief scholar of this material. This paper attempts both to disentangle the relationships between the phenomenologies of Husserrl, Heidegger, and Fink and to assess critically the value of Bruzina’s contribution. (shrink)

on points that remain especially crucial, i.e., the concept of the natural attitude, the ways into the reduction (and their systematics), and finally the question of the “meaning of the reduction.” Indeed, in the reading attempted here, this final question leads to two, not necessarily related, focal points: a Cartesian and a Life-world tendency. It is my claim that in following these two paths, Husserl was consistent in pursuing two evident leads in his philosophical enterprise; however, he was at the (...) same time unable to systematically unify these two strands. Thus, I am offering an interpretation which might be called a modified “departure from Cartesianism” reading that Landgrebe pro-. (shrink)

In the first edition of Husserl’s 5th Logical Investigation we find a relatively unknown reductive method, which Husserl identifies retrospectively in the second edition as a ,Reduktion auf den reellen Bestand‘. In the 1913 version of the Logical Investigations the descriptions of this first reduction are nearly completely obscured by Husserl’s tendency to see them as tentative hints to his transcendental reduction. In this paper I will delineate the aims and the methodical context, but also the shortcomings, of Husserl’s first (...) attempt at a reduction, taking into account also the problems of the sense and the motivation of transcendental reduction. This first reduction seems strongly steeped in the methods and presuppositions of empiricism, a stance that was highly problematic already in the phenomenology of the first edition. Thus the present investigation opens up some new ways of understanding the formation of the method of reduction in phenomenology. (shrink)

The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl's last great work, is important both for its content and for the influence it has had on other philosophers. In this book, which remained unfinished at his death, Husserl attempts to forge a union between phenomenology and existentialism. Husserl provides not only a history of philosophy but a philosophy of history. As he says in Part I, "The genuine spiritual struggles of European humanity as such take the form of struggles between (...) the philosophies, that is, between the skeptical philosophies--or nonphilosophies, which retain the word but not the task--and the actual and still vital philosophies. But the vitality of the latter consists in the fact that they are struggling for their true and genuine meaning and thus for the meaning of a genuine humanity.". (shrink)

Conçue et écrite dans le milieu des années soixante, cette Introduction à la phénoménologie de Husserl marque les retrouvailles de Patocka avec la phénoménologie après la césure de la guerre et des années cinquante. Ayant fait l'objet d'un cours à Prague et à Mayence, ce texte ne vaut pas seulement par ses vertus pédagogiques, mais surtout par la remise en perspective globale, historique et critique, qu'il propose de la problématique du fondateur de la phénoménologie. Exposé en forme de bilan, repartant (...) des origines dans la Philosophie de l'arithmétique et les Recherches logiques, et allant jusqu'à la réduction phénoménologique, la conscience intime du temps et la question de l'intersubjectivité, il est remarquable par son sens des nuances et des difficultés, le plus souvent inaperçues dans des présentations plus doctrinales : on y retrouve tout l'"esprit de finesse" si caractéristique de Patocka. Destiné à tous les publics intéressés par la phénoménologie, cet ouvrage, rédigé par un familier de Husserl, de Heidegger et de Fink, vaudra tant par la puissance que par la subtilité de sa remise au point. Le cours est suivi d'un manuscrit de travail, daté de 1976 par les Archives Patocka, et intitulé "la Phénoménologie transcendantale de Husserl après révision". C'est dire que Patocka ne s'est jamais estimé quitte de l'œuvre de Husserl, dans ses efforts pour en prolonger la portée. (shrink)

History begins inseparably with the birth of the polis and of philosophy. Both represent a unity in strife. History is life that no longer takes itself for granted. To speak, then, of the meaning of history is not to tell a story with a projected happy or unhappy ending, as Western civilization has hoped, at least since the French Revolution. History's meaning is the meaning of the struggle in which being both reveals and conceals itself. Technological society represents both the (...) triumph of historicity and its implosion, since here humans turn from reaching for the sacrum imperium - life lived in the perspective of truth and justice - to the mundane satisfaction of mundane needs, to life lived for the sake of catering to life. (shrink)

5 sehr merkwürdiger Tatsachen zutage gefördert, die vordem verborgen waren, und wirklich psychologische Tatsachen, wenn auch die Physiologen manche große Gruppen von ihnen ihrer eigenen Wissenschaft mit zurechnen. Mag die Einstimmigkeit 5 in der theoretischen Interpretation dieser Tatsachen auch sehr weit zurückstehen hinter derjenigen der exakten naturwissen­ schaftlichen Disziplinen, so ist sie in gewisser Hinsicht doch wieder eine vollkommene, nämlich was den methodischen Stil der gesuchten Theorien anlangt. Jedenfalls ist man in den inter- 10 nationalen Forscherkreisen der neuen Psychologie der (...) festen Überzeugung, einer bis vor kurzem ungebrochenen Überzeugung, daß nun endlich die allein wahre und echte Psychologie in den Gang gebracht sei, als eine strenge Wissenschaft, auf deren Wegen die Gesamtheit aller psychologischen Probleme, aller 15 zur individuellen und Kulturgeistigkeit gehörigen, liegen müssen. Es bedürfe nur, wie in jeder auf elementaren Aufbau und auf die Erklärung aus elementaren Gesetzen bedachten Erfahrungs­ wissenschaft, geduldiger Zurückhaltung und eines ganz vor­ sichtigen Emporschreitens ; man dürfe nur nicht voreilig nach 20 Problemen greifen, die noch nicht zu wissenschaftlicher Be­ arbeitung reif, für die noch nicht die Tatsachenunterlage bereit­ gestellt und die nötigen Erfahrungsbegriffe geschaffen sind. Einen nicht geringen Zuwachs an innerer Sicherheit hat die neue Psychologie durch die gelingende Schöpfung einer Psycho- 25 technik erhalten. Nun schien diese Psychologie wirklich der exakten Physik gleichzustehen. Sie war nun sogar so weit, um ihre psychologische Erkenntnis, ganz so wie physikalische und chemische, technisch nutzbar zu machen. (shrink)

This is an unusual volume. During his periods of study with Ed mund Husserl - first from I924 1. 0 I926, then from I93I to I932 - Dorion Cairns had become imnlensely impressed with the stri king philosophical quality of Husserl's conversations with his students and co-workers. Not unlike his daily writing (five to six hours a day was not uncommon, as Husserl reports herein, the nature of which was a continuous searching, reassessing, modi fying, advancing and even rejecting of (...) former views), Husserl's conversations, especially evidenced from Cairns's record, were remarkable for their depth and probing character. Because of this, and because of the importaIlt light they threw on Husserl's written and published works, Cairns had early resolved to set down in writing, as accurately as possible, the details of these conversations. Largely prompted by the questions and concerns of his students, including Cairns, the present Conversations (from the second period, I93I-I932, except for the initial conversation) provide a significant, intriguing, and always fascinating insight into both the issues which were prominent to Husserl at this time, and the way he had come to view the systematic and historical placement of his own earlier studies. Cairns had often insisted - principally in his remarkable lec 1 tures at the Graduate Faculty of the New School - that attaining a fair and accurate view of Husserl's enormously rich and complex 1 Cairns's lectures between 1956 and 1964 are especially important. (shrink)

Husserls Briefwechsel is von entscheidender Bedeutung für das Verständnis seiner philosophischen Entwicklung, seiner wissenschaftlichen Arbeit und Publikationsvorhaben. Er nimmt darin Stellung zu den politischen Entwicklungen in Deutschland und spricht sich aus über weltanschaulich-religiöse Fragen. Außerdem bestimmt er sein Verhältnis zu anderen Philosophen und Schulen. Die vorliegende, textkritisch konstituierte und reich kommentierte Gesamtausgabe ist nicht nur für Philosophen, Wissenschaftshistoriker und Zeitgeschichtlicher von hohem Interesse. Die Ausgabe umfaßt in sachlicher Gliederung Husserls Korrespondenz (ca. 1300 Einzelstücke) mit über 250 Personen und Instanzen, wobei (...) neben den Briefen Husserls - und, in großzügiger Auswahl, seiner Frau Malvine - auch alle erhaltenen Briefe an Husserl aufgenommen sind (ca. 700 Einzelstücke). Die Bände I--IV orientieren sich an der chronologischen Entwicklung der Husserlschen Philosophie, die Bände V--IX an der sachlichen Nähe der Korrespondenzpartner zu Husserls Philosophie. Band X enthält neben der Einführung in die Ausgabe verschiedene Register zur differenzierten Aufschlüsselung der Ausgabe. Edmund Husserl's correspondence is of eminent importance for a clear understanding of his philosophical development, his scientific work, and his publications. In his letters, he reacts on the political developments in Germany and ponders on the philosophy of life and on religious questions. He also clearly defines his relationships with other philosophers and schools of philosophy. This annotated and richly commented correspondence edition is of vital interest to philosophers, researchers and historians. The ten volumes consist of Husserl's correspondence (about 1300 letters) with more than 250 institutes and persons, and in addition to his letters, the letters of his wife Malvine and those received by both (about 700) are also included. Volumes I--IV present a chronological development of Husserl's philosophical system, Volumes V--IX are devoted to the correspondence partners in philosophy. The last volume consists of an extensive Introduction and a variety of indexes to all volumes in the set. (shrink)

This volume provides a valuable discussion of Husserl's lifelong project of the critique of science which makes no attempt to conflate the pre-World War I ...

All translations in this volume are mine, based on materials available in the Patocka Archive of the Institute fur die Wissenschaften vom Menschen.

"Ronald Bruzina’s superb translation... makes available in English a text of singular historical and systematic importance for phenomenology." —Husserl Studies "... a pivotal document in the development of phenomenology... essential reading for students of phenomenology twentieth-century thought." —Word Trade "... an invaluable addition to the corpus of Husserl scholarship. More than simply a scholarly treatise, however, it is the result of Fink’s collaboration with Husserl during the last ten years of Husserl’s life.... This truly essential work in phenomenology should find (...) a prominent place alongside Husserl’s own works. For readers interested in phenomenology—and in Husserl in particular—it cannot be recommended highly enough." —Choice "... a thorough critique of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology... raises many new questions.... a classic." —J. N. Mohanty A foundational text in Husserlian phenomenology, written in 1932 and now available in English for the first time. (shrink)

The "Cartesian Meditations" translation is based primarily on the printed text, edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume of Husserliana ...