Husserl’s Phenomenology

by Dan Zahavi

It is commonly believed that Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), well known as the founder of phenomenology and as the teacher of Heidegger, was unable to free himself from the framework of a classical metaphysics of subjectivity. Supposedly, he never abandoned the view that the world and the Other are constituted by a pure transcendental subject, and his thinking in consequence remains Cartesian, idealistic, and solipsistic. The continuing publication of Husserl's manuscripts has made it necessary to revise such an interpretation. Drawing upon both Husserl's published works and posthumous material, Husserl's Phenomenology incorporates the results of the most recent Husserl research. It is divided into three parts, roughly following the chronological development of Husserl's thought, from his early analyses of logic and intentionality, through his mature transcendental-philosophical analyses of reduction and constitution, to his late analyses of intersubjectivity and lifeworld. It can consequently serve as a concise and updated introduction to his thinking.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

161217 later addition: i have to mention this book only inspires me to read some husserl, to reread some already read, and though i am reading secondary lit- rather than husserl himself, think i am coming to understand him. that he might be difficult to read must be an analytic philosophy perception. but there are so many books to read and so little time...

151217 first review: i read this after many other phenomenonology books (150) so i cannot say if it works for a first book on husserl, but it is concise, direct, focused, on this way of thought. i have read also much merleau-ponty so i can see where his ideas came through and why he was drawn to later husserl, particularly on necessity of transcendental phenomenonology and intersubjectivity. this book does require some familiarity with philosophical arguments, but as with zahavi's other books can be followed by for example analytic thinkers...

i look at the review from reading natanson and though both are five, that is from two years ago, i have read much, read a lot of Indic philosophy, progressed to further reading of bergson and deleuze, read less classic phenomenonology, so this book is kind of a return. in my readings i have not adopted the misperceptions of critics analytic and more recent continental, postmodern, logician, thinkers who have decided that this style of thought is superseded, that husserl's program and task is ultimately too wedded to cartesian certainty, to subject-object, to 'foundations' rather than generation of new ontological awareness even as husserl believes it is not metaphysical, this text makes convincing argument that such denigrated prejudice of thought is mistaken...

as any short philosophy text, it helps to have always already set some kind of 'world' as a background, and here zahavi follows the historical development of phenomenonology, moving from idealism of a kind to realism of a kind, through his published work such as 'logical investigations', 'ideas', Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, as throughout his career husserl interrogates his earlier thought, moving from how he starts with something like his original arguments against 'psychologism' through to his later concepts, now widely used and appreciated in many humanities, of the 'lifeworld', which is the needed background to 'intersubjectivity', and here the arguments for the body as object and subject, that m-p will build on make their original appearance...

zahavi notes that in contrast with 'positivistic sciences' phenomenology is not concerned with substantial nature of objects, weight, rarity, chemical composition, but the way in which objects 'show themselves', the 'possibility of their being'- and so when h says 'back to the things themselves' he has a capacious definition of 'things': material object, utensil, work of art, melody, state of affairs, a number, an animal, a social relationship (pg 54), and how such things 'manifest' themselves, and phenomenology continues from description to 'transcendental idealism', where all the perspectives, all the varied moments, of the thing is seen to be one thing and not several, such as the perspective of the front of the house implies the back of the house, or when poorly lit, in rain, when driving by... all of these perspectives are unified in this sort of idealism, hs refers to various points of view and type of view as 'adumbrations'... this applies to 'intersubjectivity' as well- the way we experience the Other- in two ways of understanding any 'subjectivity' 1) the usual self 2) the broader way more concrete, encompassing both consciousness and world...

zahavi offers several pages on 'time', as required for genesis of constituted world, almost buddhist of arising and dissolving, but in h of protention, primal impression, retention, and how this is different from recollection of 'the body', how this is all now even as it is past, on 'constituting' of the world, rather than abstractions, always already as known now as past in present, and shows, often through unpublished work, that husserl remained consistent, that rather than solipsism he insists on the being of the world as not empiricism, not realism, not 'pregiven' and 'mind independent' objects, yet also not classical idealism more like kant operates in ontology in 'synthesis', such as the reductive metaphysical abstractions of natural sciences, which he critiques in his last and most readable work Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, not dismissing sciences' obvious success but pointing out that science does not examine its own conditions of possibility, but remains driven to technical innovation, and h, by focusing on the immediate and intuitive, also examines the mistakes of ever prioritizing this abstraction of for example geometry over our human ambiguities...

this is a great critique but possibly it is best read after natanson's Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks...

more
020220:
Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks
Husserl
Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology
Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Husserl and the Cartesian Meditations
The Ethics of Husserl's Phenomenology
Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology

[Hossein Bayat]

بعداً ریویو می‌نویسم
دوست دارم راجع به تجربه خوندنش مفصل بنویسم، برای همین وارد نکرده بودم. اما چون آخر ساله و دوست دارم بدونم دقیقاً چه‌قدر مطالعه داشتم و حسابش دستم باشه وارد می‌کنم.‌

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zahavi nicely explicates Husserl's primary contributions, explaining them in a clear, orderly manner. There are three chapters, on early, middle, and late Husserl. Husserl's early works stemmed from his motivation to counter psychologism. This position attempts to dismiss the objective status of logic by understanding logic as a purely psychological phenomenon, which ought to be studied empirically, as other natural processes. Husserl sought to find a new objective grounds of logic in the possibilities of conscious experience; this required attending carefully to our first-personal experience and gave birth to his phenomenological approach.

Through this investigation, Husserl believed he discovered that all conscious experiences are distinguishable into two components, an intentional act, and the object of that act. Our intentional acts are directed towards real objects in the world, which there is subjective content that enables the act; so we are connected to the world, and the basis of logic is to be found in this relation to real objects. Husserl distinguished between different kinds of intentional acts, which deliver us objects of differing ontological standings. On one end, in perceptual acts we encounter objects most directly and optimally; on another end, in linguistic acts we encounter mere references to objects, which lack all the detail of perceptually delivered objects.

Husserl shifted his philosophical focus from the examination of details in phenomenological experience to to formulating a systematic method of using phenomenological description to discover transcendental conditions that make those details possible. (This is pretty much Kant's project, and I am still unclear whether Husserl's primary points make any real advancements from Kant, other than a few that I'll name below). Husserl carved out a category the natural attitude to refer to an epistemic attitude we typically hold in everyday life on which we assume that all the immediate identities and facts of things we encounter are true and actual in a mind-independent way. On Husserl's transcendental phenomenological method, we are supposed to suspend or bracket off the validity this natural attitude; this is called the epoche.

This is a fancy way of talking about having general skepticism. We perform this epoche for the sake of realizing how we, as transcendental subjects, are responsible for the typical meanings that objects have for us. (It seems to me that the general insight is that when we shift our attitudes, beliefs, or other sorts of doxastic relations to objects, the ways those objects appear to us change; I don't see why it is essential that the two attitudes, between which we shift, must be this natural attitude and then an attitude of skepticism. Maybe the skepticism is necessary because only this, as a prior condition, is consistent with the position that the meanings of things are created by us; if we maintained a certain belief in the positive meaning of objects as being given or self-evident, as the prior position, this contradicts the view that the meaning is conditional upon us. But more generally, I don't see how these conclusions move any further from Kant's).

Later in his career, Husserl began to focus on embodiment, intersubjectivity, and the lifeworld. He focused on the fact that the possibilities of our experiences are conditional upon our embodied standpoint, which is subject to natural forces like biology, time, and culture. Particularly, the meanings that objects have are not just solely created by our isolated selves. Rather, our enculturation and interactions with others hand to us the normative meanings objects ought to have. Others show us what objects mean and set forth the trajectories of the meanings we'll make.

Husserl also critiqued natural science. He argued that natural science cannot account for subjectivity, value, or anything that is existentially meaningful. Science fated itself to this incapacity from the assumptions and goals it set for itself at its genesis: science aims to deliver totally objective knowledge, which holds true for any person, regardless of their enculturation and particularity. The consequence of this is that science bars itself from taking details of this enculturation and particularity of the individual seriously.

In contrast, Husserl's transcendental phenomenological method can attend to this domain. Husserl gives a name for it: the lifeworld -- the realm of everyday experience had by a subject. Husserl argues that all scientific knowledge is conditional on the lifeworld, since scientists are embodied subjects who conduct their investigations within their lifeworlds. There are totally invariant structures to the lifeworld (e.g., due to the biological hardwiring of our cognitive system; or the mind-independent features of the environment), and these undergird the objectivity of scientific knowledge. So while science really is objective in its own way, we have an incomplete understanding of any of its claims, until we consider the lifeworld in which it is based. Scientific truth is objective but not totally unconditional.

I would give this book 5 stars for the clarity and succinctness of this writing. My only irritation with it is that Zahavi has a very clear agenda to defend Husserl against some traditional attacks on him, attacks that he is Cartesian at heart, married to the ideal for totally unconditioned knowledge of the subject. Zahavi wants to show the world that Husserl had many of the radical positions that are typically thought of as belonging to only later thinkers like Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty.

Perhaps this is true. I've read only the Crisis in the European Sciences, Husserl's last work, and the primary place in which he talks about intersubjectivity and culture. But there his ideas are extremely preliminary; I still think Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are the first to really do radical work on these topics. But I am no Husserl scholar, as Zahavi is; and anyways, the debate over who owns what idea is very uninteresting.

I'd highly recommend this book for readers who want a general orientation to Husserl's thought. For readers who as especially interested in the topics dealt with by late Husserl, I'd recommend them to read Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty instead.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is good. So far, the best intro. to H. that I've read, and the shortest by a long shot. D.W. Smith's Routledge intro. (lime green + black jacket) is a lot fatter and a lot more diffuse than this, not managing to pull together the different threads of Husserl's phenomenology like Zahavi does, resulting in more of an overview. J.N. Mohanty's is interesting but a bit vague at key moments. Namely-- what is a noema?! Is (the early) Husserl a Platonist? Zahavi, for what it's worth, has answers. In the case of the noema, it ~can't~ be what the Føllesdal-McIntyre interp. says it is (a Fregean Sinn, more or less) because that would circumscribe the possibility of transcendental phenomenology. Z. thinks the Husserl of _Logical Investigations_ was metaphysically neutral (I don't agree) and that the later Husserl was definitely not a Platonist (I agree). The latter point is obvious enough just by virtue of this analyses of the lived body (Leib), intersubjectivity, and sedimentation as necessary for constituting certain layers of objectivity, without which the world would not 'make sense' in the familiar, everyday style.

[Ethan Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent intro to Edmund Husserl's phenomenology but not the place to start if phenomenology is new to you as a philosophical topic and method. I stopped midway through to read an intro to phenomenology before returning to finish this.

[Matei Borangic · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible introduction into husserl's thought.

[S.M.Y Kayseri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book in providing an introduction to Husserl’s idea of phenomenology. Phenomenology, in Husserl’s own words, is a movement to return back to the thing themselves, whereby the thing themselves are not meant in the Kantian way, but the ordinary apodeictic givenness of experience.

Without convoluting too much of the current space, a summary is warranted. The early Husserl adopted a kind of radical empiricism, which he held against the movement of psychologism (of which he attributed Locke as the father) which believed that the physical laws can be interpreted through psychical processes. This movement can easily be trudged to the realm of subjective idealism, which believe only the perceived that exists. And subjective idealism wanders too close with skepticism, perhaps its natural consequence.

Husserl countered this by pointing out that the proponents of psychologism confused between the act and object of cognition. While the act of consciousness is naturally immanent in it, but the object is not. Consider how the object of our consciousness through reflection would differ compared to the direct givenness of daily objects. The daily objects of consciousness are given in perspective; it is given in propria persona, one surface at the time while simultaneously anticipates its absent profiles. Thus the object of our consciousness, whether exists externally like the tree I am seeing or the faun dancing inside my head, they both exist in perspectival. I can circumambulate the entire object in the same act of cognition. And this cannot be so, if the object is immanent in that one act of cognition, for then only one facet would be present, in a way captured by the one cognition. But, all objects of consciousness, whether it possesses an external referents or not, presents itself in perspectival thus not immanent in our consciousness; the object transcends our experience. It is this strict dyad between the subject and the object that showcased the irreducibility of the intentional nature of our consciousness. We are always perceiving something, whether that something exists or not. I can doubt that I am seeing a flying pink elephant, but I cannot doubt that I am intending my consciousness towards something. Husserl embracing of radical realism was something he thought to escape the yoke of psychologism.

Husserl thus are developing a descriptive science that intends to delineates the essential framework of our consciousness. But naturally, while delineating the genetic origin of our consciousness i.e the structure of consciousness itself, it would also require Husserl to discover the constituting nature of consciousness, that is how experience of the World are brought to realization through the framework he modeled as above. This naturally caused him to explore on the subjective consciousness that without which, the experience could not be unfolded at all. Essentially, he performed a turn towards transcendental idealism in his discovery of the ego that constitutes both the framework of phenomena and the content of it.

The exploration on the nature of ego also important in answering the big question on temporality. Why phenomena are given in temporal, to whom and what the sense of succession are given? The answer would be there is a subjective ego that exerts an inertia through succession of phenomena. Now he realized the succession of phenomena which is the essential characteristic of Reality as an unending flux only possible through a constituting subjective consciousness, instead of the Humean bundle of acts.

Husserl also introduced the notion of horizon/anticipation which is the a priori consciousness of a thing absent profiles, which we shown in the beginning. A Husserlian primary datum of phenomena i.e the state of affairs consisted of the dynamic unfolding of it through temporal and spatial anticipation.

Regarding the latter, it is necessary to understand the different modes of experience according to Husserl. We can talk about the tree in the backyard, we can see the picture of it and we can also perceive it directly by going to the backyard. According to Husserl, owing to the nature of intentionality in our consciousness, the three situation referred to the same intended object, but with different intuitional fulfilment. The modes of experience is respectively known as symbolic, imaginative and intuitive mode of experience. The first situation describes the object in its least intuitively fulfilled state, while the third described and presented the object intuitively. They differed from one state to another due to the varying degree of sensuous “accompaniment”, yet referred to the same object, only in a graded series of fulfilment.

Regarding the former, temporality can be explained by the presence of the subjective ego exists in at one point of time, not in isolation, but in anticipation of its prior and future states. The current point are called as the primal intuition and it in a sense opened forward and backward through retaining the impression of the prior point (retention) and anticipating the impression of the future point (protention).

A dynamic unfolding of both spatial and temporal horizon yields the Husserlian state of affairs, of which the center of intended objects are being intuitively fulfilled while as the locus spread to the peripheries, they recedes into imaginative echoes and lastly symbolic presentness. At the same time, the subjective ego propagates through a new point in time due to the virtue of protentive anticipation while simultaneously retained its past retentive echoes. The subjective ego trudges across phenomena through the dynamic unfolding of these 6 primordial structures of experience.

Of course, this does not do justice to the complexity of Husserl’s ideas. While at times unnecessarily complex with a hidden note of mysticism, Husserl provides a transcendental domain where consciousness can be objectively described. It is relevant in the field of psychology where understanding of psychotic and neurotic experiences are needed.

Husserl might balked from the anthropological description of the phenomena experienced by the psychotic and neurotic. But it is a necessary consequent from his analysis of the ontological structure of Phenomena. From his robust description, out flows the specific givenness as experienced by the mentally ill. We understand neurotic as the subjective consciousness inflicted by extreme introspection, and of psychotic as subjective consciousness lost its integrative stricture and dissipated into the Reality it itself constituted.

Personality can then be understood as the selective, idiosyncratic dominant stance in experiencing the Reality. Studies have spoken about how even so-called normal people have their own interpretative aspects of Reality, and how antipsychotics provide a powerful adjuncts to the acutely neurotic. In the dyad between the subject and the object, of which Husserl would called as the “life-world”, traumatic experience resulting to ontological rupturing, causes the ego to adopt a certain, fixed pattern of behavior in response to the same trigger in real-time.

They can either be predominantly bias towards the subject which we called as the chthonic predisposition, and towards the object which we hailed as empyrean. And towards the predominant loci, the neurotic can either shrink away from it through the process of individuation, or to merge with it through enmeshment. Both strategies possessed the end-goal of ego integration.

It is through rigorous understanding of phenomenology can we provide an a priori description in psychiatry. As shown above, it is through the necessary intentional and constituting nature of out consciousness that we elicit all objects of consciousness, either an externally real objects of objects of phantasy and hallucinations. They all are given wholly through consciousness, but only differs in their degree of intuitive fulfilment. The hallucinations haunting the psychotic are thus, as real in its givenness, as us encountering the daily objects of experience. Phenomenological descriptions of the neurotic and psychotic yields a priori and necessary insights in their psychogenesis, allowing clinicians a new paradigm in diagnosing and treating patients.

[Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good introduction - the best I've read. Husserl breeds some of the least readable criticism out there - like father like son! - but Zahavi keeps things mostly clear.

It says a lot about the jargonistic nature of the field, however, that this book can, relatively speaking, be described as 'clear'. Be warned, it is not an easy read; there are 'ism's, some well-defined and others not, lurking in every paragraph.

Zahavi does show moments of admirable lucidity as to the ultimate absurdity of this constellation of 'isms', but his own inability to put together a coherent account without constant reference to it makes you wonder... How much of philosophical writing and thought is an attempt to situate theories in relation to a fairly arbitrary set of templates? Is Husserl an idealist, a foundationalist, a representationalist, a intra-mentalist, a realist, an anti-realist, a metaphysical realist, a phenomenalist, a Fregean, a metaphysicist, a subjectivist...? (There are literally hundreds more). Order now to find out!

[Taleb Jaberi · Rating 4 out of 5]

شرح به نسبت خوبی بود. چیز زیادی درباره پروژه منطقی ابتدایی هوسرل در آن نیست. ترجمه اشکالات زیادی داشت و به ویرایش گسترده نیاز دارد.

[Rabib · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wanting to read Being and Nothingness but having trouble with its vocabulary, I searched for advice and heard that some prior reading on Husserl would be helpful. So I picked up this book. I had little intuition about Husserl's project at the time beyond the importance of epoché.

I am quite impressed with Husserl's thought as presented. While perhaps characterized as something of a solipsist by some, on the contrary, Husserl speaks of an encounter with the transcendent. So the natural attitude is not repudiated, but incorporated within a broader understanding of experience via the epoché. This lays the ground for an immensely powerful philosophy, as we see a connection drawn between the constitutive faculties of experience and the transcendent. Indeed, we see the transcendent as not only constituted, but also constituting; this relation acquires astonishing potential in the account of transcendental intersubjectivity.

Our minds are endowed with a structure-giving capacity from birth that is both the ground for any sense-making of the world and yet re-configuring itself with reference to the world, including everyone around us. It's no wonder, then, that political and religious debates within civil society are so disturbing: even if the coordinates of my "material" life are assured, an encounter with a certain kind of foreign normality—e.g. a large enough body of people who share enough in common with me to convince me that the basic parameters by which I assess my life are wrong—may disrupt my ability to retain a coherent view of where I stand in my circumstances. And this is just an instantiation of a more general problem: the structure of my own mind is perpetually threatening to estrange me by virtue of its temporalization and my immersion in a world that is Other. Am I justified in saying that I am my own self?

So, in Husserl, I have happily found someone who appears to have been satisfied with description as a method, and who in so doing not only developed a philosophy with practically infinite breadth of application, but also painted a most ominous portrait of each individual's predicament.

[Hsandlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear and concise explication of Husserl’s philosophy as well as some useful context. At 144 pages (of content that is, excluding index, etc.), it serves as a wonderful introduction to phenomenology. I am not well versed in his work so I can’t speak to its faithfulness but I have heard those more acquainted with his writing praise it highly for its well rounded yet short explanation. The author makes it clear when he is injecting his own opinion and at the end he directly explains what what he left out and further context of Husserl’s work as a whole.

As clear as the book is, I would recommend reading it with a highlighter in hand. It is dense insofar as it throws a lot of jargon at you at once. However, the author does a wonderful job of breaking those explications up with contextual paragraphs. He also is not shy about repeating himself for the sake of clarity. There are many “To reiterate...” and “To summarize...” riddled throughout the book, each of which very welcomed.

This is not a good book for someone with no background in philosophy but is not impenetrable for them. Ideally you will have a basic background of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, etc. but you could probably get away with just looking up terms as you go. That said, you do not have to be an expert to read it, it is very clear and in very plain English. Definitely recommend it for anyone interested in phenomenology.

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting for what it is although I'm not a huge fan of Husserl. This is my second or third book by Zahavi and he writes clearly and informatively. Would definitely recommend for anyone interested enough to take a quick dip into Husserl but not enough to read his actual work —which is, in my opinion, quite boring.

[Gareth · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to comment without knowing the entire works of Husserl, but this introduction felt excellent. Concise and clear with a good use of examples. It is digestibly sized and flows well for a beginner in Husserl, providing a good grounding and a springboard for further investigations.

[Lev Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pretty decent summary of Husserl's system of phenomenology as well as a decent 'novel' counter-interpretation of Husserl where Husserl's account of inner time-consciousness and inter-subjectivity lands him closer to Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger than many scholars have thought.

[Mate Saralishvili · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Re)reading some of the books about Husserl and phenomenology in general. ✨

Zahavi clearly stands out as one of the best authors on the subject with a profound insight in the matter. (Maybe, together with Dermut Moran.)

[Igor Capelari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eu teria gostado mais se tivesse entendido. O autor é infinitamente caridoso com Husserl e parece levar em consideração as formas mais fiéis da interpretação, não importando o quão absurdo o conteúdo pareça. Gostei mais de ler sobre o primeiro Husserl, metade do livro, do que do resto.

[Jorgis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a novice to phenomenology I think I couldn't have asked for a better introduction. It lays out Husserl's evolving thought in a clear an concise manner, which allows to understand all core concepts with which phenomenology operates. I don't think you will get better introduction with 140 pages!

[Kathryn Mattern · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent exposition of Husserl's thinking. However, I found it more accessible after reading Sokolowski's "Introduction to Phenomenology."

[Ka-ying · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best of the best.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it. I liked Zahavi's Phenomenology: The Basics a little more.

[Golnaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

بهترین منبع علمی و آموزشی برای آشنایی با پدیدارشناسی و ورود به دنیای هوسرل. ترجمه هم خیلی واضح و روشنه و مطالب همه کاملاً ساده و قابل فهم نوشته شده

[Josh Kannard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh the joy of reading Husserl without having to read Husserl! A very clear and helpful presentation of Husserl's ideas.

[Drake Finlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to Hussel. Though Hussel's ideas are still a little shaky for me, this book offered as much clarity to his thought as I think is possible.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a supplement to my graduate level Phenomenology as a Tradition course. It was great to have, as we only spent 3 weeks on Husserl, and I (as well as several others in the class) found it hard to really wrap our heads around the big issues before flying on to Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty (Levinas, Ricoeur, Zahavi himself upcoming). I think I might finally (sort of) get what the big picture is. I was rather disappointed by the conclusion, and how most of the content is probably not really in line with all of Husserls writings... all 40,000 pages of them. But, in the end, we should be starting from what he published and working our way to the notes and scribbles. I definitely suggest it for anyone struggling to get the big concepts the first time, though someone already familiar with Husserl, reduction, epoche, life-world, etc, may find it not worth their time and should instead go start reading the man himself.

[Anthony Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read, Zajavi's book nevertheless provides a good introduction to the philosophy of Husserl. It seeks to revive Husserl's reputation as philosopher in his own right, and not merely as a predecessor to Heidegger.

Husserl tried to discover the foundation for the human understanding of the world. In his early work, he placed intentionality (directedness towards objects)at the heart of subjectivity, seeing intentionality as a condition for appearance and meaning. Later he devised his transcendental phenomenology involving epoche and reduction. Finally, Husserl's method flowered in his studies of temporality, the body, intersubjectivity and the lifeworld. These call into question the more extreme forms of scientism, while avoiding solipsism and an over-radical criticism of science.

This book is a most useful guide to this influential philosopher.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eigentlich kann man dieses Buch gar nicht genug loben. Zahavi gelingt es hier auf 150 Seiten das riesengroße Werk von einem der größten Denker des 20. Jahrhunderts konzise darzustellen. Er spricht dabei alle wichtigen Elemente in Husserls Denken an und geht auch auf Kritiken gegen Husserl ein. Wer eventuell schon ein wenig Husserl gelesen hat oder einfach mal einen sehr schönen Überblick zu ihm bekommen möchte macht mit diesem Buch sicherlich keinen Fehler.

[Rodger Broome · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have found Zahavi's explanation of Husserl's Phenomenology the most straight forward and clear approach to Husserl for a novice I have found. If one is beginning to explore phenomenology, this book is a must to get started.

[Owen Schuh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction goes beyond the published material. Maybe I can tackle The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology eventually.

[Simon Vigneault · Rating 5 out of 5]

I doubt there is a better or clearer intro to Husserl.

[Cj Guth · Rating 5 out of 5]

So delightfully clear. I read it far too quickly, but I am most excited to go back through it with a little more care (and perhaps side-by-side with some of Husserl's own writings).