Husserl Hassles
Friday July 14, 2006
For the last few days I’ve been up to my ears in the work of the founder of phenomenology Edmund Husserl for my second draft of the PhD. Poor old Edmund… he’s a fine philosopher in many ways (barking mad in others, mind you) – and there’s a lot of interesting work going on in terms of phenomenological and Buddhist accounts of consciousness (on which more later!)... but the old boy’s writing isn’t exactly a rip-roaring read at the best of times.
Anyway, I’ve finished rewriting chapter one and hence, for the time being, I’ve put Husserl to one side, which is something of a relief. Now I’ve got a bit more of an opportunity to turn to other matters. I’m getting some notes on various topics together to blog about when I have recovered from my post-Husserlian malaise; and in the meantime, I’ve been doing a bit more behind-the-scenes work here at thinkBuddha.
I’ve made a couple of changes to the site. Firstly I’ve added a new “Live Search” box that is a little more swish than the old search box. Try typing a keyword into the box to the right of the screen that says “Search” and you should have a nice little popup with your search results in, generated live as you type. Secondly, I’ve taken a few extra measures to combat the trickle of inappropriate comment spam that I’ve been receiving of late. My apologies to any visitors who have come across inappropriate comments here over the last couple of days. The problems now should be, if not sorted, then at least much diminished.
Image: phenomenologycenter.org
#2 · Will
20 July 2006
Hi, CK, Thanks for the welcome. I’ll post about joining the Daily Scribe here tomorrow.
But on to Husserl… Most of my PhD work is on Levinas and also Michel Serres, and Husserl is there to give the context for Levinas’s work.
Husserl himself doesn’t talk much about ethics as an area of philosophy, although he is very clear that the purpose of phenomenology is ultimately the establishment of some kind of moral community. In this, I think, he failed abysmally. But he failed interestingly as well.
More later, perhaps…
Will
#3 · Shawn Anthony
20 July 2006
Welcome to Scribe! It looks like you and ck have much to talk about!
#1 · ck
20 July 2006
Welcome to the Daily Scribe! I’m interested in hearing more about your PhD and wondering how you’re approaching ethics via Husserl. (Your About mentioned you’re focusing on ethics.)