The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973): Volume I: Constitutive Phenomenology in Historical Perspective (Phaenomenologica, 192)

The first of a planned six volumes of Gurwitsch’s writings, this volume contains, above all, the English translation of his __Esquisse de phénoménologie constitutive,__ the text based on his four lecture courses at Institute d’Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques at the Sorbonne during the 1930s. These lectures were regularly attended by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book relates Husserlian or constitutive phenomenology to modern first philosophy and the philosophy of the human as well as the natural sciences and was nearly finished when Gurwitsch had to flee to the United States before Germany conquered France. In addition, this volume contains what is in effect Gurwitsch’s autobiographical sketch, critical reviews of works by Gaston Berger, Jean Hering, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Maurice Pradines, and Ives Simone, members of the French intellectual milieu of the 1930s when French phenomenology initially developed, and also two originally unpublished essays from that period. Finally, there are three essays and two reviews from Gurwitsch’s American period in which phenomenological philosophy and especially his revised account of the noema is also placed in historical perspective. Front Matter....Pages I-IX Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Translator and Editor’s Introduction....Pages 1-40 Biographical Sketch of Aron Gurwitsch....Pages 41-54 Front Matter....Pages 55-55 Author’s Introduction....Pages 57-59 The Problem of the Philosophy of Consciousness....Pages 61-82 The Natural Attitude and the Phenomenological Reduction....Pages 83-106 The Conception of Consciousness....Pages 107-183 The Structure of the Perceptual Noema....Pages 185-303 Front Matter....Pages 305-305 Some Fundamental Principles of Constitutive Phenomenology....Pages 307-329 Theme and Attitude....Pages 331-349 Husserl’s Theory of the Intentionality of Consciousness in Historical Perspective....Pages 351-381 Towards a Theory of Intentionality....Pages 383-398 The Phenomenology of Perception: Perceptual Implications ....Pages 399-410 The Perceptual World and the Rationalized Universe....Pages 411-437 Front Matter....Pages 439-439 Gaston Berger, Le Cogito Dans La Philosophie de Husserl (Paris: Aubier/ Éditions Montaigne, 1941), 159 pp....Pages 441-447 Gaston Berger, “Husserl et Hume,” Revue Internationale De Philosophie , Vol. I (1939), pp. 342–353....Pages 449-451 Gaston Berger, Recherches Sur Les Conditions De La Connaissance. Essai D’une Théoretique Pure (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1941), 193pp....Pages 453-461 Marvin Farber, The Foundation Of Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl and the Quest for a Rigorous Science of Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943; 2nd. ed. (New York: Paine-Whitman Publishers, 1962), XI and 585 pp....Pages 463-470 James Street Fulton, “The Cartesianism of Phenomenology,” The Philosophical Review , Vol. XLIX (1940), pp. 285–308....Pages 471-480 Jean Hering, “La Phénoménologie D’edmund Husserl il y a Trente ans. Souvenirs et Réflexions D’un Étudiant De 1909.” Revue Internationale De Philosophie , Vol. I, No. 2 (1939), pp. 366–373....Pages 481-482 “Preface” to Quentin Lauer, The Triumph of Subjectivity (New York: Fordham University Press, 1958), pp. V–Viii....Pages 483-486 Front Matter....Pages 439-439 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie De La Perception (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1945), Xvi and 531 pp.....Pages 487-490 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception , Trans. C. Smith (New York: The Humanities Press, 1962), pp. Xxii and 466....Pages 491-496 Maurice Pradines, Philosophie De La Sensation. II. La Sensibilité élémentaire. Les Sens De La Défense . Publications De La Faculté Des Lettres De L’université De Strasbourg, Fascicule 66 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1934), 381 pp....Pages 497-500 Yves Simon, Études sur l’idée de nécessité dans la pensée scientifique et en philosophie (Montréal: Éditions de l’Arbre, 1944)....Pages 501-505 Back Matter....Pages 507-521 1 The present volume is rich in essential phenomenological descriptions 2 and insightful historico-critical analyses, some of which cannot be fully appreciated, however, except by close examination on the part of the reader. Accordingly, such a task ought to be left to the consideration and judgment of the latter, save where such discussions are directly relevant to the topics I will be dwelling upon. I prefer, then, to approach the matters and questions contained here otherwise, namely, archeologically. In this I 3 follow Jose ́ Huertas-Jourda, the editor of the corresponding French vol- 4 ume, in his felicitous terminological choice, although I adopt it here for my purposes in an etymological sense, i. e., as signifying a return to prin- 5 ciples or origins. This, after all, is consistent not only with the spirit and practice of phenomenology, as acknowledged by Aron Gurwitsch often enough, but as well with what he has actually said, to wit: it is a qu- tion of 1 Cf., e. g., infra,in An Outline of Constitutive Phenomenology, Chapter 4, pp. 185 ff. (Henceforth I shall refer to this book as Outline.) This essay will be devoted to the study of selected parts of the contents of this volume, although, when necessary, use will be made here of other works by various authors, including Gurwitsch. 2 Cf., e. g., ibid., Chapter 3, pp. 107 ff. The first of a planned six volumes of Gurwitsch's writings, this volume contains, above all, the English translation of his Equisse de phénoménologie constitutive, the text based on his four lecture courses at Institute d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques at the Sorbonne during the 1930s. These lectures were regularly attended by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book relates Husserlian or constitutive phenomenology to modern first philosophy and the philosophy of the human as well as the natural sciences and was nearly finished when Gurwitsch had to flee to the United States before Germany conquered France. In addition, this volume contains what is in effect Gurwitsch's autobiographical sketch, critical reviews of works by Gaston Berger, Jean Hering, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Maurice Pradines, and Ives Simone, members of the French intellectual milieu of the 1930s when French phenomenology initially developed, and also two originally unpublished essays from that period. Finally, there are three essays and two reviews from Gurwitsch's American period in which phenomenological philosophy and especially his revised account of the noema are also placed in historical perspective