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LEVINAS, Emmanuel. Discovering Existence With Husserl. Translated by Richard A. Cohen and Michael B. Smith. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1998. xix + 198. Cloth, $69.95; paper, $18.95-This book contains the translation of a collection of Emmanuel Levinas's essays on Husserl. The essays reflect Levinas's reading of Husserl from 1929 until 1977. The book is divided into three parts reflecting on Levinas's changing interpretation of Husserl during this time period. Part 1 is called "Husserl's Phenomenology" and contains essays written from 1929 to 1940. Part 2, "Levinas's Husserl," spans the period of 1959-65. Part 3, "Beyond Husserl," only holds two essays. One is dated 1974, the other 1977. They display Levinas's own phenomenology.
In the early essays, Levinas credits Husserl for establishing intuition as the foundation for essences and truth. Husserl's phenomenological poche or phenomenological reduction allows for intentionality which reconciles empiricism with rationalism.
As early as 1929, Levinas considered Husserl's phenomenology to be dependent upon an "LL A "subjectively oriented phenomenology" (p. 20) requires thought upon the constitution of the "I" (a topic that would be taken up by Husserl himself much later). The "I" must be seen in the intersubjective context because objectivity must...