The Unity of Husserl’s Logical Investigations: Then and Now

Abstract

Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations (1900–1901) ranges over some 1000 pages. (Husserl 1968, 1970.) Arguably his magnum opus, certainly the foundation for all his subsequent writings, this daunting work looks like a patchwork of ideas on a lot of largely independent philosophical themes. For a hundred years most readers have taken and used it in that way. Certainly I did for many years. (Particular issues from the Investigations are pursued for instance by : Mohanty 1982 and Willard 1984 on antipsychologism in the Prolegomena; Sokolowski 1974 and Simons 1995 on language in Investigation I; B. Smith ed. 1982 and Fine 1995 on the ontology of part/whole in Investigation III; Bar-Hillel 1956 on logical grammar in Investigation IV; Smith and McIntyre 1982 on content and intentionality in Investigation V ; Willard 1995 and Ff llesdal 1999 on knowledge and intuition in Investigation VI.)

The present essay follows on the heels of a series of essays that provide support for the interpretation developed here. See Smith 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d, 2002e. In those essays I argue for the ways in which Husserl’s system integrates logic, ontology, phenomenology, and epistemology.