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The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology (Studies in Continental Thought)

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Welton's anthology contains essential texts from Husserl's published works, as well as "unknown" selections from the Husserliana series -- selections which have prompted much debate in the scholarship insofar as they require a drastic reconsideration of the traditional interpretation of Husserlian phenomenology. The sections which deal with static and genetic phenomenology are worth the price of purchase alone. Welton's introduction does a fine job of setting up the terrain, as well as discussing the aforementioned debates in the literature. (Although I don't find any real basis in another reviewer's claims about the "homo-eroticism" implicit in Husserl's texts.) Especially given the price of the Kluwer editions of Husserl's works, one simply can't go wrong with this book. For those interested in phenomenology, or 20th Century philosophy in general, Welton's book is indeed essential.

Husserl published two long books, The Logical Invesigatnons and Ideas Pertaining to the Pure Phenomenology. He wrote very much more than he published, leaving shelves of unfinished manuscripts. He also gave some fairly complete public lectures. Relative to the volume of his total output, only fragments of his work are tranlated into English and these aren't always representative of Husserl's best ideas or affordable for the student. Examples: as far as I know, Thing and Space has no English translation and Husserl would agree that the price of Cartesian Mediations is absurd. It's nice to have this reasonably priced and representative selection of Husserl texts. They start near the beginning of Husserl's published work (around 1900 if I remember rightly) and take us through about 40 years of his phenomenological labors.

This work is better appreciated after one has gained some introduction to HUsserl. I suggest starting off with the Cartesian Meditations, and trying to find a good commentary on them. UNDERSTANDING PHENOMENOLOGY is a fantastic book, albeit unavailable.

This collection of Husserl's writings comes from Husserl's polemic against the "excesses" of radical empiricists and psychological skeptics at the end of the XIX century such as Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius. For Husserl, phenomenology was a project to defend scientific objectivity against the radical empirical reduction of sense-data to subjective, private feelings and perception. If this were the case, then communicating concepts or establishing consensus of what is valid or invalid would be impossible. Husserl, therefore, tries to find objective truth in the realm of subjective experience. His solution is to distinguish a moment of intention, where the subject represents the object as an essence, separated from other objects, to perceive it as a "pure" phenomenon, without biases or prejudices. Husserl's concept of science is very unique, and it may seem strange to our positive conception of science as the quantification, and measurement of things. For Husserl, science is rather how we experience certainty at the psychological level without becoming a relativist. Besides proving a thing certain, we have to experience its certainty, and this experience is universal. It is the foundation of science. Husserl's philosophical style is extremely complicated, and as a good writer in German, his use of long sentences and neologisms makes the English reading very difficult. Yet, his philosophy was extremely influential in the development of XX. century European thought. I highly recommend this book for those interested in the "prehistory" of deconstruction, existentialism, and post-structuralism.

This collection is truly a publishing event. What is especially remarkable is that it contains 'essential writing' that has been for many years suppressed. It is a little known fact that late in his career Husserl moved from the consideration of the transcendental ego to a pheneomenology of that ego's 'bodified' being. Institutional powers-that-be were wary of disclosing this 'turn' due to the blatant homo-eroticism present in Husserl's analysis. Welton has risked alienating himself from the academic community, and should be praised for his courage and commitment to unearthing the truth, whatever that might be. Moreover, included in this collection is a fine introduction by Welton which introduces the reader to the political infighting which surrounded the publication of this text and nearly tore the community of Husserl scholars asunder. A daring, timely introduction to Husserl's work. I recommend this book unreservedly.

Though a difficult text to read, it offers a great overview of husserl's phenomenology. should be combined w/ heideggers time and being