Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology Nature, Spirit, and Life

Edmund Husserl (1859?1938) is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl's phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl's writings on the natural and human sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl's thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally.

Introduction; 1. Southwestern Neo-Kantianism in search of ontology; 2. Life-philosophical accounts of history and psyche: Simmel and Dilthey; 3. Standpoints and attitudes: scientificity between Neo-Kantianism and Husserlian phenomenology; 4. The reception of Husserl's Ideen among the Neo-Kantians; 5. Husserl's critique of Rickert's secretly naturalistic transcendentalism: the Natur und Geist lectures (1919–27); 6. Historia formaliter spectata: Husserl and the life-philosophers; 7. The life-world as the source of nature and culture: towards a transcendental-phenomenological worldview; 8. Ethical and cultural implications in Husserl's phenomenology of the life-world; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Andrea Staiti is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He has published many articles in journals such as Husserl Studies, Continental Philosophy Review, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and Research in Phenomenology. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including New Approaches to Neo-Kantianism (Cambridge, forthcoming) and Geistigkeit, Leben und geschichtliche Welt in der Transzendentalphänomenologie Husserls (2010).