Hopkins begins his study with Plato's written and unwritten theories of eidê and Aristotle's criticism of both. He then traces Husserl's early investigations into the formation of mathematical and logical concepts, charting the critical necessity that leads from descriptive psychology to transcendentally pure phenomenology. An investigation of the movement of Husserl's phenomenology of transcendental consciousness to that of monadological intersubjectivity follows. Hopkins then presents the final stage of the development of Husserl's thought, which situates monadological intersubjectivity within the context of (...) the historical a priori constitutive of all meaning. An exposition of the unwarranted historical presuppositions that guide Heidegger's fundamental ontological and Derrida's deconstructive criticisms of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology concludes the book. By following Husserl's personal trajectory Hopkins is able to show the unity of Husserl's philosophical enterprise, challenging the prevailing view that Husserl's late turn to history is inconsistent with his earlier attempts to establish phenomenology as a pure science. Contents: Introduction Part I Descriptive Psychology 1. Investigation of the Origin of Number 2. Investigation of the Origin of Logical Signification Part II Cartesian Transcendental Phenomenology 3. Investigation of the Origin of Objective Transcendence 4. Investigation of the Origin of Subjective Transcendence Part III Historical Transcendental Phenomenology 5. The Crisis of Meaning in Contemporary European Science 6. Historical Investigation of the Phenomenological Origin Part IV Husserl and his Critics 7. Fundamental Critiques of Transcendental Phenomenology 8. A Husserlian Response to the Critics. (shrink)

The present essay offers a first, systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s understanding of Socrates’ philosophical position in the Ideengeschichte with a special focus on the Socratic method. Our goal is twofold. On the one hand, we aim to provide a clear presentation of the way in which Husserl himself conceives of the “beginning” of Western philosophy by tackling the specifically Socratic contribution to it. On the other hand, we will clarify in what sense, and to what extent, the assessment of Husserl’s (...) Socrates helps shed some light upon the properly Husserlian conception of philosophy, notably, his twofold notion of “rationality.”. (shrink)

Over a period of several decades spanning the origin of the Vienna Circle, Schlick repeatedly attacked Husserl''s phenomenological method for its reliance on the ability to intuitively grasp or see essences. Aside from its significance for phenomenologists, the attack illuminates significant and little-explored tensions in the history of analytic philosophy as well. For after coming under the influence of Wittgenstein, Schlick proposed to replace Husserl''s account of the epistemology of propositions describing the overall structure of experience with his own account (...) based on the structure of language rather than on the intuition of essences. I discuss both philosophers'' accounts of the epistemology of propositions describing the structure of experience. For both philosophers, this epistemology was closely related to the general epistemology of logic; nevertheless, neither philosopher had a completely coherent account of it. Comparison of the two approaches shows that perennial and severe theoretical obstacles stand in the way of giving an epistemology of the structure of experience, a central requirement for both philosophers'' theories. Consideration of these obstacles sheds a new light on the reasons for the historically decisive split between the continental and the analytic traditions, as well as on the subsequent development of the analytic tradition away from the structural description of experience. (shrink)

The present research contributes to the elucidation of an important aspect of Husserl’s interpretation of the history of philosophy, that is, his reading of the beginning of Western thought. In par...

A clear understanding of the notion of phenomenological reduction is crucial for any evaluation of the claims of Husserlian phenomenology. The phenomenological reduction is said to be the distinctive step one has to take if one is to enter the realm of phenomenology proper. Husserl labored all his life to find the best way which would lead the nonphenomenologist into the new land which he thought he had discovered. Commentators have classified the ways discussed by Husserl under at least three (...) main headings: the Cartesian way, the way through psychology, and the way through ontology. In each of these ways, one is urged to perform a phenomenological reduction. But since the ways are different, the step also of the phenomenological reduction varies somewhat for each approach. Husserl and his interpreters tried hard to clarify these subtle distinctions, but up to now their ways of speaking have proven rather opaque, especially to philosophers accustomed to the standards of clarity of Analytic Philosophy. (shrink)

Il est bien connu que, dans la Ve Recherche Logique, Husserl critique la théorie brentanienne du jugement. Son problème est de définir le “porteur” de vérité auquel le jugement donne une valeur de vérité. Un tel projet le conduit très près du propositionalisme bolzanien. Alors la théorie phénoménologique du jugement apparaît comme une sorte de compromis entre la psychologie brentanienne de l’acte et un point de vue purement sémantique hérité de Bolzano. La question demeure de savoir si une telle conciliation (...) est possible sans un tournant transcendantal. (shrink)