The idea of phenomenology in Wittgenstein and Husserl

Jaakko Hintikka

pp. 101-123

in: Keith Lehrer, Johann C. Marek (eds), Austrian philosophy past and present, Deventer, Kluwer, 1997

Abstract

Most of my colleagues these days seem to assume that they know well enough what the major thinkers meant who created the contemporary philosophy. Among these philosophers, the two figuring in my title, Wittgenstein and Husserl, loom particularly large. Over the years I have come to believe that my colleagues are wrong and that we have not fully grasped the import of the philosophy of the likes of Husserl and Wittgenstein. I have also come to believe that in trying to understand the founding fathers of twentieth-century philosophy comparative studies are extremely useful. Of course comparisons alone will not do the whole job. One of the reasons why Husserl and Wittgenstein have not been appreciated better is that the philosophical issues themselves with which they were struggling have not really been mastered. We have been unable to place the ideas of a Husserl or a Wittgenstein on the map of the relevant concepts, problems and issues because we have not succeeded in mapping the relevant philosophical landscape in the first place.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Wittgenstein Ludwig