Husserl’s Ideas I

Husserl’s Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (1913) is one of the most important philosophical texts of the twentieth century. It is the first of Husserl’s published works to present his transcendental phenomenology and to argue that it is the fundamental science of philosophy. In Ideas I, Husserl introduces numerous concepts that are central to his mature thought: the principle of all principles, the phenomenological epoché and reduction, pure consciousness, the natural and phenomenological attitudes, and noema. It this text Husserl also argues for a form of idealism – a position that was the source of much controversy among his readers. This course will consist of a detailed reading of Ideas I as well as contemporary commentaries on the topics and problems presented therein.