Translator’s Introduction

Abstract

In the winter semester of 1902/03, Edmund Husserl offered a lecture course at the University of Göttingen on the general theory of knowledge. At the conclusion of that course he recorded the following sentiment on the envelope containing his lecture notes: “From time to time I am born up by the conviction that I have made more progress in the critique of knowledge than any of my predecessors, that I have seen with substantial and, in some respects, complete clarity what my predecessors scarcely suspected or else left in a state of confusion. And yet: what a mass of unclarity in these pages, how much half-done work, how much anguishing uncertainty in the details. How much is still just preliminary work, mere struggle on the way to the goal and not the full goal itself, actually achieved and seen from every side? Will it not be given to me, with powerful effort redoubled and with the application of all my vital energies, actually to arrive at the goal? Is this half clarity, this tortuous restlessness, which is a sign of unresolved problems, bearable? Thus I am, after many years, still the beginner and the student. But I want to become the master! Carpe diem.” ¹ On November 4, 1903, he added this dismal observation,.“The anguish only grows greater, and I remain in the same old place. No progress has been made.s.”²