Descartes and Husserl : the philosophical project of radical beginnings

Bibliographic Information

Descartes and Husserl : the philosophical project of radical beginnings

Paul S. MacDonald

(SUNY series in philosophy)

State University of New York Press, c2000

  • : hardcover
  • : pbk

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book explores the profound influence of Descartes' philosophy on Husserl's project for phenomenology. Husserl often cited Descartes as his "spiritual mentor" and the systematic doubt of the Meditations became one of the principal points of departure for beginning phenomenological investigations. However, there is an over-arching parallel between their respective philosophical enterprises which only an intimate and informed knowledge of both Descartes' and Husserl's texts can demonstrate. This convergence in their vision of a radically new beginning for philosophy often comes to the surface in unexpected places, where Husserl creatively mistakes Descartes' discoveries. Husserl remarked that Descartes had remained too true to the original skeptical impetus and not radical enough in his overthrow of that position. The author's research shows that Husserl remained far truer to Cartesianism, precisely in those places where the influence is deeply buried, and less radical than a faithful reading of Descartes' project according to the order of reasons would reveal. Since Husserl's influence on twentieth-century continental philosophers has been so well remarked, this work uncovers the legitimacy of their assessment of his Cartesian point of departure.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Introduction: Convergence and Divergence 2. Seventeenth-Century Skepticism versus Nineteenth-Century Empirical Psychology 3. Order of Reasons versus Order of Essences
  • or, Science's Building and Philosophy's Path 4. Simple and Complex Natures and Part-Whole Theory 5. Cartesian Ideas: Doubtful Matters and Acts of Doubting 6. Methodical Doubt and the Phenomenological Reduction 7. Intuition as Seeing with the Mind's Eye 8. The Concept of Radical Conversion Notes Bibliography Index

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