Husserl Edmund - Natures suit: Husserls phenomenological philosophy of the physical sciences

SERIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT

Editorial Board

Ted Toadvine, Chairman, University of Oregon

Elizabeth A. Behnke, Study Project in Phenomenology of the Body

David Carr, Emory University

James Dodd, New School University

Lester Embree, Florida Atlantic University

Jos Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University

Joseph J. Kockelmans, Pennsylvania State University

William R. McKenna, Miami University

Algis Mickunas, Ohio University

J. N. Mohanty, Temple University

Dermot Moran, University College Dublin

Thomas Nenon, University of Memphis

Rosemary Rizo-Patron de Lerner, Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, Lima

Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg Universitt, Mainz

Gail Soffer, Rome, Italy

Elizabeth Strker, Universitt Kln

Nicolas de Warren, Wellesley College

Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University

International Advisory Board

Suzanne Bachelard, Universit de Paris

Rudolf Boehm, Rijksuniversiteit Gent

Albert Borgmann, University of Montana

Amedeo Giorgi, Saybrook Institute

Richard Grathoff, Universitt Bielefeld

Samuel Ijsseling, Husserl-Archief te Leuven

Alphonso Lingis, Pennsylvania State University

Werner Marx, Albert-Ludwigs Universitt, Freiburg

David Rasmussen, Boston College

John Sallis, Boston College

John Scanlon, Duquesne University

Hugh J. Silverman, State University of New York, Stony Brook

Carlo Sini, Universit di Milano

Jacques Taminiaux, Louvain-la-Neuve

D. Lawrence Wieder

Dallas Willard, University of Southern California

Natures Suit

.

Husserls Phenomenological Philosophy of the Physical Sciences

LEE HARDY

OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS / ATHENS

Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hardy, Lee.

Natures suit : Husserls phenomenological philosophy of the physical sciences / Lee Hardy.

pages cm. (Series in Continental thought ; No. 45)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8214-2065-2 (hc : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8214-2066-9 (pb : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8214-4470-2 (pdf)

1. Husserl, Edmund, 18591938. 2. Phenomenology. 3. Physical sciencesPhilosophy. I. Title.

B3279.H94H359 2014

193dc23

2013038522

The rigor of science requires that we distinguish
well the undraped figure of nature from the bright
vesture with which we clothe it at our pleasure.

Heinrich Hertz

Mathematics and mathematical science, as a garb of ideas
encompasses everything which, for scientists and the
educated generally, represents the lifeworld, dresses it up
as objectively actual and true nature.
It is through the garb of ideas that we take
for true being what is actually a method.

Edmund Husserl

.

..

This book has been a long time coming, and so has accumulated a fair number of debts of gratitude along the way. Reaching back to the early period of my philosophical formation, I should like to thank a number of my former professors: Lester Embree, John Scanlon, Joseph Kockelmans, and Elisabeth Strker, from whom I learned much about Husserl; and Larry Laudan, Carl Hempel, Wilfrid Sellars, and Kenneth Schaffner, from whom I learned much about the philosophy of science. I should also like to thank my colleagues at Calvin College. A number of the chapters of this work went through the dreaded Tuesday Colloquium of the philosophy department at Calvin College. The criticisms received there were to the point, usually helpful, and always delivered in a spirit of trust and friendship. I would be remiss if I did not pick out Del Ratzsch and Stephen Wykstraboth philosophers of sciencefor special thanks. John Van Dyke, of the physics department of the University of Illinois, reviewed the entire manuscript. I am grateful for his perceptive comments.

Thanks are also due to a number of colleagues across the Atlantic: to Ursala Panzer of the Husserl Archives at the University of Kln; to Elisabeth Strker again, but this time as my host at the University of Kln during a sabbatical stay; to Ullrich Melle, present director of the Husserl Archives, for permission to make use of material from the unpublished manuscripts of Husserl; and to Rochus Sowa of the Husserl Archives, for his careful and thorough review of the unpublished material I incorporated into my text.

A couple of institutions are also on my thank-you list: Springer Science+Business Media B.V., for kind permission to publish a revised version of my article The Idea of Science in Husserl and the Tradition, which appeared in Phenomenology of Natural Science, edited by Lee Hardy and Lester E. Embree (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992), 134. That piece appears as in this volume. My thanks also to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a Travel to Collections grant in support of my sabbatical work at the Husserl Archives in Kln, Germany; and to the Calvin College Alumni Association for a faculty research grant in support of the same endeavor.

..

Simple citations of Husserls works are included in the body of the text (e.g., C, 66 / H VI, 67). The English translation is given first, in the form of an abbreviation of its title followed by the page number. Where appropriate, the reference to the standard German edition of Husserls works, Husserliana, is given after the slash with the letter H, followed by the volume number in roman numerals and the page number. For Husserls Logos article of 1910, Philosophie als Strenge Wissenschaft, the Berlinger edition is cited (PSW). The unpublished English translation by Dorion Cairns, Philosophy as a Strict Science (PSS), is used and cited for the English quotations of this work. But because the Cairns translation is not complete, the Quentin Lauer translation, Philosophy as a Rigorous Science (PRS), is sometimes used. The abbreviations for the English titles of Husserls major works are as follows: