Edmund Husserl, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology: From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910-1911. Translated by Ingo Farin and James G. Hart: Springer, Dordrecht, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4020-3787-0 (hardback), $139.00; ISBN 978-1-4020-3789-4 (e-book)

Husserl Stud (2010) 26:245249

DOI 10.1007/s10743-010-9073-7

Edmund Husserl, The Basic Problemsof Phenomenology: From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 19101911. Translated by Ingo Farin and James G. Hart

Springer, Dordrecht, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4020-3787-0 (hardback), $139.00; ISBN 978-1-4020-3789-4 (e-book)

Colin J. Hahn

Published online: 4 May 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

As is known, Husserls understanding of phenomenology developed in radically new directions between the publication of Logical Investigations in 1900/01 and Ideas I in 1913. His lecture courses from this period chronicle the discoveries he made on the road to his transcendental understanding of phenomenology, including the discovery of the phenomenological reduction in the 1907 course (published as The Idea of Phenomenology), his investigations into time-consciousness in 1905 (published as Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time), and his epistemological developments in the 1906/1907 course (recently translated as Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge).1 With the present translation by Ingo Farin and James G. Hart, the English reader can nally add to this list Husserls 1910/1911 course, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (originally published in Husserliana XIII).

The Basic Problems lecture course differs from Husserls other lecture courses during this period in several ways. Basic Problems introduces the sphere of phenomenological investigation and proceeds to survey this sphere, identifying major problems to be addressed in future inquiries. Unlike The Idea of Phenomenology, which aims to introduce the method of the reduction, Basic Problems engages in genuine phenomenological inquiry by employing the reduction and analyzing the phenomena thus revealed. While the time-consciousness lectures focus almost exclusively on temporal phenomena, the subjects of inquiry in Basic Problems range from spatial objects to the lived body to intersubjectivity. The breadth of topics in Basic Problems allows Husserl to go beyond both of his other above-mentioned lecture courses in showing the relations among various phenomenological problems. As a result, the reader can understand how Husserls

1 Husserl (1991, 1999, 2009).

C. J. Hahn (&)

Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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phenomenological method motivates his investigations into intersubjectivity, the stream of lived experience, and the status of phenomenology among the other sciences. In fact, Husserl himself references this lecture course as a crucial moment in his work on...