Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: Second Book: Studies in Phenomenology of the Constitution

The present translation draws upon nearly half a century of Husserl scholarship as well as the many translations into English of other books by Husserl, occasioned by W.R. Boyce Gibson’s pioneering translation of **Ideas, First Book , in 1931. Based on the most recent German edition of the original text published in 1976 by Martinus Nijhoff and edited by Dr. Karl Schuhmann, the present translation offers an entirely new rendering into English of Husserl’s great work, together with a representative selection of Husserl’s own noted and revised parts of his book. Thus the translation makes available, for the first time in English, a significant commentary by Husserl on his own text over a period of about sixteen years.** As is made plain in the critical apparatus and editorial matter appended to the original German publication of Hussed's Ideas II, I this is a text with a history. It underwent revision after revision, spanning almost 20 years in one of the most fertile periods of the philosopher's life. The book owes its form to the work of many hands, and its unity is one that has been imposed on it. Yet there is nothing here that cannot be traced back to Hussed himself. Indeed, the final" clean copy" for publication, prepared by an assistant, was completely reviewed by the master three times and emended by him in detail on each occasion. Nevertheless, in the end the work was in fact not submitted for publication, and after Hussed's pen last touched the manuscript in 1928 it was set aside until posthumously edited and published by the Hussed-Archives in 1952. The story of the composition of Ideas II begins with the "pencil manuscript" of 1912. This is the ultimate textual source for both Ideas II and Ideas III. 2 It has been preserved as a folio of 84 sheets in very dense shorthand of the Gabelsberger system, written mostly with a pencil. It was composed by Hussed "in one stroke" immediately after the completion of I Edmund Husser!: Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phiinomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Edited by Marly Biemel. The Hague: Martinus NijhofT, 1952 (Husserliana IV). the Logische Untersuchungen,l phenomenology has been conceived as a substratum of empirical psychology, as a sphere comprising "imma­ nental" descriptions of psychical mental processes, a sphere compris­ ing descriptions that - so the immanence in question is understood - are strictly confined within the bounds of internal experience.