Husserl Edmund - Husserl

Husserl

This second edition of David Woodruff Smith's stimulating introduction to Husserl has been fully updated and includes a new ninth chapter featuring contemporary issues confronting Husserl's phenomenology. It introduces the whole of Edmund Husserl's thought, demonstrating his influence on philosophy of mind and language, on ontology and epistemology, as well as ethical theory, and on philosophy of logic, mathematics, and science.

Starting with an overview of Husserl's life and works, and his place in twentieth-century philosophy, and in Western philosophy as a whole, Smith introduces Husserl's conception of phenomenology, explaining his innovative theories of intentionality, objectivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity. In subsequent chapters Smith covers Husserl's logic, metaphysics, realism and transcendental idealism, epistemology, and (meta)ethics. Finally, the author assesses the significance and implications of Husserl's work for contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

Also included is a timeline, glossary, and extensive suggestions for further reading, making Husserl, second edition, essential reading for anyone interested in phenomenology, twentieth-century philosophy, and the continuing influence of this eminent philosopher.

David Woodruff Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, USA. He is the author of Mind World: Essays in Phenomenology and Ontology (2004) and the co-editor (with Amie L. Thomasson) of Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind (2005).

Routledge Philosophers
Edited by Brian Leiter

University of Chicago

Routledge Philosophers is a major series of introductions to the great Western philosophers. Each book places a major philosopher or thinker in historical context, explains and assesses their key arguments, and considers their legacy. Additional features include a chronology of major dates and events, chapter summaries, annotated suggestions for further reading and a glossary of technical terms.

An ideal starting point for those new to philosophy, they are also essential reading for those interested in the subject at any level.

Hobbes
A.P. Martinich

Leibniz
Nicholas Jolley

Locke
E.J. Lowe

Hegel
Frederick Beiser

Rousseau
Nicholas Dent

Schopenhauer
Julian Young

Freud
Jonathan Lear

Kant
Paul Guyer

Husserl
David Woodruff Smith

Darwin
Tim Lewens

Aristotle
Christopher Shields

Rawls
Samuel Freeman

Spinoza
Michael Della Rocca

Merleau-Ponty
Taylor Carman

Russell
Gregory Landini

Wittgenstein
William Child

Heidegger
John Richardson

Adorno
Brian O'Connor

Forthcoming:

Aristotle, second edition
Christopher Shields

Kant, second edition
Paul Guyer

Freud, second edition
Jonathan Lear

Hume
Don Garrett

Smith
Eric Schliesser

Habermas
Kenneth Baynes

Mill
Daniel Jacobson

Plato
Constance Meinwald

Dewey
Steven Fesmire

Nietzsche
Maudemarie Clark

David Woodruff Smith

Husserl

Second edition

Second edition published 2013
By Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Ave, New York City, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2007, 2013 David Woodruff Smith

The right of David Woodruff Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First published in 2007 by Routledge

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Smith, David Woodruff, 1944
Husserl / By David W. Smith. Second edition.
pages cm. (Routledge philosophers)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Husserl, Edmund, 18591938. I. Title.
B3279.H94S54 2013
193dc23
2013001842

ISBN: 9780415622561 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780415622578 (pbk)
ISBN: 9780203742952 (ebk)

Typeset in Joanna MT and Din
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton

For the SmithDouglas ensemble

Contents

One
Husserl's life and works

Two
Husserl's philosophical system

Three
Logic: meaning in language, mind, and science

Four
Ontology: essences and categories, minds and bodies

Five
Phenomenology I: the new science of conscious experience

Six
Phenomenology II: intentionality, method, and theory

Seven
Epistemology: beyond rationalism, empiricism, and Kantianism

Eight
Ethics: values founded in experience

Nine
Husserl's legacy and Husserlian philosophy today

This book is a study of Edmund Husserl's overall system of philosophy, presenting his development of phenomenology in relation to his theories in logic, ontology, epistemology, and ethics. Husserl is of course renowned as the founder of phenomenology, the first-person science of consciousness. In the present interpretation of Husserl's system, however, phenomenology does not stand alone, as the sole foundation of the system; rather, it stands in interdependence with further principles in logic, ontology, etc.

For the second edition of Husserl I have written a new ninth chapter, addressing Husserl in the context of contemporary philosophy. Otherwise, the text of the first edition is unchanged, preserving the focus on Husserl's holistic system of philosophy. The ninth chapter overviews Husserl's historical legacy (incorporating material from the first edition), and then wrestles with how Husserlian theory might handle contemporary problems in the theory of consciousness and its ontology. In this new discussion a sympathetic critique of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology we address four interconnected issues that have come into sharp focus especially in the last decade.

First, in the age of neuroscience, where does the phenomenal character of our experience what it is like subjectively fit into the scientific image of the natural world, where consciousness emerges from neural activities in the brain? This is called the hard problem in the science of consciousness. Second, granting phenomenal character, exactly which features of an experience make it conscious, defining awareness per se? Its intentionality (being already a consciousness-of-something)?, or perhaps a higher-order monitoring of its transpiring (implemented by the hippocampus)?, or simply its appearance in the temporal flow of consciousness? Third, what place do nontemporal