This volume aims to contextualize the development and reception of Husserl’s transcendental-phenomenological idealism by placing him in dialogue with his most important interlocutors – his mentors, peers, and students. Husserl’s “turn” to idealism and the ensuing reaction to Ideas I resulted in a schism between the early members of the phenomenological movement. The division between the realist and the transcendental phenomenologists is often portrayed as a sharp one, with the realists naively and dogmatically rejecting all of Husserl’s written work after (...) the Logical Investigations. However, this understanding of the trajectory of the phenomenological movement ignores the extensive and intricate contours of the idealism-realism debate. In addition to helping us better interpret Husserl’s attempts to defend his idealism, reconsidering the idealism-realism debate elucidates the relationship and differences between Husserl's phenomenology and the broader landscape of early 20th century German philosophy, particularly the Munich phenomenologists and the Neo-Kantians. The contributions to this volume reconsider many of the early interpretations and critiques of Husserl, inviting readers to assess the merits of the arguments put forward by his critics while also shedding new light on their so-called “misunderstandings” of his idealism. This text should be of interest to researchers working in the history of phenomenology and Husserlian studies. (shrink)

A pervasive interpretation among Husserl scholars is that his transcendental idealism inevitably leads to some form of solipsism. The aim of this dissertation is to defend Husserl against this charge. First, I argue that Husserl’s transcendental idealism is not a metaphysical theory. Transcendental phenomenology brackets all metaphysical presuppositions and argues from experience to the conditions of the possibility of experience. Husserl’s transcendental idealism should therefore be interpreted as a transcendental theory of knowledge. Second, it follows from the above characterization of (...) Husserl’s transcendental idealism that the responses Husserl gives to the problem of solipsism are in no way meant to prove the existence in-itself of an external world or the existence in-themselves of other transcendental egos. The purpose of Husserl’s engagement with the problem of solipsism is to explain how it is that transcendental phenomenology can account for the constitution of both the Objectivity of the world of experience and other psycho-physical subjects. The result is a set of transcendental arguments that explain the necessary conditions of the cognition of a shared external world and of other persons. I conclude with Husserl that the solipsism is a transcendental illusion, and that Husserl’s transcendental idealism does not lead to a problematic solipsism. Through a careful study of Husserl’s Nachlass, with particular attention paid to Ideas I, Formal and Transcendental Logic, and Cartesian Meditations, I lay the framework for a transcendental-epistemological interpretation of Husserl’s idealism. Applying this interpretive strategy to Husserl’s discussions of the problem of solipsism and intersubjective monadology, I argue that, for Husserl, empathy is the condition of the experience of other subjects, but that it does not allow us to experience the mental-lives of other transcendental egos. (shrink)

Volume XVI Phenomenology of Emotions, Systematical and Historical Perspectives Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl's groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Esteban Marín Ávila, Thiemo Breyer, Jakub Čapek, Mariano Crespo, Roberta De Monticelli, John J. Drummond, Søren Engelsen, Maria Gyemant, Mirja Hartimo, Elisa Magrì, Ronny Miron, Anthony J. Steinbock, (...) Panos Theodorou, Íngrid Vendrell Ferran, Antonio Zirión Quijano, and Nate Zuckerman. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors electronically via e-mail attachments. (shrink)