Husserl's Philosophical Analysis

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Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, is arguably one of the most important philosophers in terms of the development of twentieth-century continental philosophy. Husserl develops phenomenology as a new rigorous eidetic science of consciousness (the study of essence) which subsequently inspires a generation of philosophers and social scientists in Germany, France, and Great Britain. First this paper will look at the background from which Husserl’s philosophy emerged. Secondly, Husserl’s main philosophical periods will be discussed. Thirdly, the essay will examine the phenomenological reduction in detail and explore subsequent criticism. Fourthly, the author’s own general criticism of the reduction and phenomenology will be considered. …show more content…

However, the two main traditions of philosophy developing during this time are, roughly termed, continental philosophy, of which Husserl is a key figure at the beginning of the twentieth century, and analytic philosophy where Frege plays a seminal role around that same time. However diverse these two traditions might seem, they nonetheless share two common ancestors, namely; Bolzano and Brentano. From Bolzano Frege and Husserl take the idea that thoughts are not subjective mental experiences, but that they contain objective content which one can analyse, and from Brentano they incorporate the thesis of intentionality; this non-subjective thought is directed towards objects in the …show more content…

However, Moritz Schlick argues, cited in Kusch, that logical structures and judgements result from psychological processes and that those who argue for the absoluteness of the logical cannot do so on the basis of claiming psychological laws to be vague for this amounts to a petitio principii. Husserl, however, wants to forge a middle path between extreme empiricism and extreme idealism which includes accepting Kant’s notion that humans actively engage the world through consciousness, but simultaneously rejecting Kant’s phenomena-noumena metaphysics in which actual objects remains unknowable. However, in Husserl’s Ideas 1: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1913) an inclination towards phenomenological naïve realism starts to become

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