The Shorter Logical Investigations

by Edmund Husserl, Michael Dummett (Foreword), J.N. Findlay (Translator)

Edmund Husserl is widely regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. The founder of phenomenology, the Logical Investigations is his most famous work. Published in two volumes in 1900, it had a decisive impact on the direction of twentieth century philosophy. It is one of the few works to have influenced philosophers as far apart as Frege and Heidegger and had a crucial impact on the development of both continental and analytic philosophy. This paperback abridged edition of J.N. Findlay's translation makes the key sections of this classic work available in one volume for the first time. It has been specially edited and includes a new introduction by Dermot Moran and a new preface by Sir Michael Dummett. It places the Logical Investigations in historical context and brings out its importance for contemporary philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy

510 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (Dr. phil. hab., University of Halle-Wittenberg, 1887; Ph.D., Mathematics, University of Vienna, 1883) was a philosopher who is deemed the founder of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, believing that experience is the source of all knowledge, while at the same time he elaborated critiques of psychologism and historicism.

Born into a Moravian Jewish family, he was baptized as a Lutheran in 1887. Husserl studied mathematics under Karl Weierstrass, completing a Ph.D. under Leo Königsberger, and studied philosophy under Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. Husserl taught philosophy, as a Privatdozent at Halle from 1887, then as professor, first at Göttingen from 1901, then at Freiburg im Breisgau from 1916 until his 1928 retirement.

Reviews

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have deep methodological disagreements with Husserl's project in this work, namely the search for "first principles" in demarcating the relations between the disciplines and the "hermeneutic circle" refutation that emerges forthwith. I see resonances of Kant and Descartes here, as well as later affinities with Heidegger and Wittgenstein, even Austen.

[Aaron May · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in Husserl development of phenomenology, then you'll want to read this book. Husserl's Logical Investigations is a response to Brentano's descriptive psychology and the beginning of phenomenology.