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NENON, Thomas and EMBREE, Lester, eds. Issues in Husserl's Ideas II. Contributions to Phenomenology in Cooperation with the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, vol. 24. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996. xi + 263 pp. Cloth, $143.00-The 13 essays in this collection mirror the structure of Husserl's text in exploring, sequentially, the constitution of material nature, animal nature, and the spiritual world. A passage from Husserl's research manuscripts (with translation) sets the stage for investigation by establishing the crucial distinction between "causality," applicable to the spatio-temporal relations of the physical realm, and "motivation," applicable to the interior psychical sphere. The role of motivation becomes a central theme underlying the topics treated in the subsequent essays. The essays thus make clear, in various ways, that what is ultimately at stake here for Husserl is the rescue of the spiritual or cultural world and the human person from the absolutized dominance of a theoretically conceived "nature" devoid of value, meaning, and purpose.
One of the things that makes these essays particularly effective is the phenomenological approach they adopt in investigating Husserl's analyses. By inviting us to "become Husserl's fellow researchers, entering his laboratory" (p. 136), they prompt us to adopt this same attitude so that we, too, can...