The Foundation of Phenomenology

Abstract

FROM the University of Buffalo there is beginning to flow, as from a watershed, a determined stream of philosophical enterprise, likely, given time and circumstance, to gather momentum as it goes. Prof. Marvin Farber, in this book, the latest venture of the School of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, has put scholars everywhere in his debt for a labour of love—for and on behalf of Edmund Husserl—difficult to value too highly. It should be said at once that the author is not prepared to accept all Husserl's doctrines without reserve, nor is the nexus of students with whom he is associated ready (as he wrote to me recently) to set up a patron saint in advance to preside over their deliberations. The position is in fact wholesomely fluid. Further, there is no attempt to erect German philosophy in general upon a pedestal: on the contrary, it is found to be unsatisfactory in a variety of ways. This may be due in part to a strife of schools, all too common in Europe, but luckily seldom enqountered in the United States. All that is asked is that no hasty judgments should be passed upon such a complex theme as Husserl's pattern of thought. Indeed, to be irresponsible here would be more than ungracious.

The Foundation of Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl and the Quest for a Rigorous Science of Philosophy By Prof. Marvin Farber. Pp. xi + 585. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1943.) 33s. 6d. net.