Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology

by Edmund Husserl

Book Overview

La nostalgie d'une philosophie vivante a conduit de nos jours a bien des renaissances. Nous demandons: la seule renaissance vraiment feconde ne consisterait-elle pas a ressusciter les Meditations... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 902470068X
• ISBN13: 9789024700684
• Release Date: July 1977
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Introduction

The Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology was written by Edmund Husserl (the founder of phenomenology). This means the book is not muddled by the need to reconcile conflicting views on what phenomenology is according to various philosophers, like in commentaries. Also, many commentaries follow Sartre's, Heidegger's (as found in Being and Time) and Merleau-Ponty's human conciseness centered phenomenology leaving Husserl's phenomenology as a footnote. Being that Husserl's phenomenology is underrepresented in secondary sources, it is necessary to read Husserl's own writings. Cartesian Meditations offers a full understanding of Husserl's philosophy. The only other source for this is Husserl's Ideas Pertaining to Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, which is spilt in to three volumes and is around 900 pages. Ideas... is not only long, but it gives the reader a distinct feeling that many of the sections are dead ends and could have been edited out. Cartesian Meditations, on the other hand, is concise. Also, the book is easier to understand because the structure is similar to Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. However, one should not think Husserl super-imposed his philosophy on Descartes'. In Cartesian Meditations, Husserl only made the similarities that could already be found in Ideas... explicit to help introduce Phenomenology to a larger audience though a familiar median. Even though the book was written as an introduction (as the title indicates), the audience need not be novice of Phenomenology. People who have read Ideas... cover to cover can still appreciate the book because it contains only what is essential to Husserl's Phenomenology, unlike Ideas..., which according to Husserl contains "imperfections". Cartesian Meditations makes one of the most influential twentieth century thinkers accessible.

An Excellent Introduction To Phenomenology

This little book is an excellent introduction to Husserl's phenomenology. He outlines his idea of the intentionality of consciousness via the "transcendental ego". If Sartre had paid more attention to this, his outlook wouldn't have been so pessimistic. Caveat: This book is hard reading -- it's not really for the newcomer to philosophy and Husserl's toxic and dense style will probably put off all but the determined.