History, Teleology, and God in the Philosophy of Husserl

Abstract

The historians of our epoch agree in admitting that Husserl is an important philosopher. Whatever their point of view, they could not deny that the phenomenological movement set in motion by him has contributed to the intellectual profile of Europe. They could not be blind to the fact that the philosophies of Scheler, of Heidegger, of Sartre, and of Merleau-Ponty presuppose certain directing ideas of Husserl’s. Husserl is therefore a thinker whom we must study closely. But we know him little, we know him poorly, we know him superficially. We try to get rid of him by subsuming his case under ready-made categories. According to certain historians Husserl would be an “essentialist,” an “intuitionist,” a “Platonist”; according to others, an “immanentist,” an “idealist,” or a “subtle neoKantian.” Once such a slogan has been found we have arrived: we have “understood” Husserlian thought by making it enter into a rubric.