Husserl's Phenomenology: Knowledge, Objectivity and Others

Description

Kevin Hermberg's book fills an important gap in previous Husserl scholarship by focusing on intersubjectivity and empathy (i.e., the experience of others as other subjects) and by addressing the related issues of validity, the degrees of evidence with which something can be experienced, and the different senses of 'objective' in Husserl's texts. Despite accusations by commentators that Husserl's is a solipsistic philosophy and that the epistemologies in Husserl's late and early works are contradictory, Hermberg shows that empathy, and thus other subjects, are related to one's knowledge on the view offered in each of Husserl's Introductions to Phenomenology. Empathy is significantly related to knowledge in at least two ways, and Husserl's epistemology might, consequently, be called a social epistemology: (a) empathy helps to give evidence for validity and thus to solidify one's knowledge, and (b) it helps to broaden one's knowledge by giving access to what others have known. These roles of empathy are not at odds with one another; rather, both are at play in each of the Introductions (if even only implicitly) and, given his position in the earlier work, Husserl needed to expand the role of empathy as he did. Such a reliance on empathy, however, calls into question whether Husserl's is a transcendental philosophy in the sense Husserl claimed.

Kevin Hermberg is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Dominican College, New York, USA.

Kevin Hermberg's book offers us both a very useful overview of what the problem of one's experience of other subjects (i.e., the problem of empathy) in Husserl is and a systematic treatment of empathy's epistemological function... He...meticulously and convincingly demonstrates how empathy is the only way objectivity can be obtained in Husserl's system, objectivity as intersubjective agreement and validity... Useful to beginners in Husserl as well as specialists... The book is instructive, insightful, well written, and clear. Pol Vandevelde, Phofessor of Philosophy, Marquette University -mention -- Chronicle of Higher Education mention- Book News Inc./ August 2007 'First readers of Husserl will benefit from this book's careful, clear, and very readable exposition ... . All will find it a welcome contribution to Husserl scholarship from the point of view that Husserl's own published works deserve precedence in constructing the narrative of his philosophical work. Hermberg's redirecting of the conversation from the possibility to the roles of empathy in Husserl's work is an important turn in Husserlian scholarship - a turn that sheds new light on Husserl's place in the history of philosophy.' John L. Meech, Shimer College * Blurb from reviewer *