Was den Menschen zum Menschen macht

Edmund Husserl

3 Min. Lesezeit

🇩🇪 Deutsche Version: Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl is the founder of phenomenology and thus of the philosophical method that the book employs, alongside the Thomistic tradition, as its second load-bearing pillar. His principle “Back to the things themselves” determines the methodological approach to the question of the person.

Key Contribution

Husserl’s decisive contribution lies in the methodological demand: “Back to the things themselves!” Philosophy must not start from theories about things, but from the things themselves as they show themselves. For the question of the person, this fundamental phenomenological attitude means: it is not a preconceived theory that decides what a person is, but the insight into what shows itself in the person herself. The truth about the person is not constructed, but seen (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 37–60).

Central Ideas in the Book

Insight and Truth

Husserl emphasizes the capacity of the human mind for insight — for the immediate grasp of states of affairs that prove to be true or false. This insight is no mere opining, but a seeing that legitimates itself by what is given. For the ontology of the person this means: the truth about the person is no arbitrary positing, but can be seen in genuine cognition.

Phenomenology as Method

The phenomenological method demands that all prejudices and preconceived theories be “bracketed” in order to penetrate to the things themselves. Applied to the question of the person: neither naturalistic reductionism nor pure idealism may anticipate the result. The person must be described as she shows herself — as a someone who cognizes, loves, is free, and bears responsibility.

Intentionality

Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality — the directedness of consciousness toward something — points to the fundamental openness of the person. Self-consciousness is always at the same time consciousness of something: the person is with herself by going beyond herself. In the book, this structure is taken up as the foundation of self-transcendence and of the Second Dimension of personhood.

Place in the Book

Husserl is drawn upon above all in the chapter Chapter 2: How Can This Question Be Answered? (German), where the phenomenological method is introduced as the approach to the ontology of the person. His students Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Edith Stein, Adolf Reinach, and Max Scheler carry his method forward in different directions and contribute substantially to the unfolding of the substance-ontological concept of person.

Sources: Bexten 2017, pp. 37–60 (Husserl’s phenomenological method as the methodological foundation of the ontology of the person).

Further sources:

  • Logische Untersuchungen (1900/01). Halle: Niemeyer (Engl.: Logical Investigations, transl. J. N. Findlay, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1970; foundation of phenomenology, doctrine of intentionality)
  • Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie (1913). Halle: Niemeyer (Engl.: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, transl. F. Kersten, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1983; essential intuition and the phenomenological method as access to the things themselves)

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