Husserl's purely logical chastity belt

Claire Ortiz Hill

pp. 135-146

in: Christina Weiss (ed), Constructive semantics, Berlin, Springer, 2019

Abstract

What follows is about Husserl, whose phenomenology, I believe, can be understood as a form of constructivism. However, I generally write about Husserl's philosophy of logic and mathematics, which he repeatedly said had nothing to do with transcendental phenomenology. So, my aim here is to discuss some things that I believe people interested in constructivism and Husserl's transcendental phenomenology need to keep in mind. I say that, despite appearances, phenomenology was not everything for Husserl. As much as he loved it, he placed definite limits on what one should do with it and believed that it required an objective complement in the form of pure logic, that it had to be subject to a priori laws to keep phenomenologists from falling into psychologism, naturalism, empiricism, relativism and associated evils. According to this interpretation, Husserl the possible constructivist, Husserl the phenomenologist, Husserl the Platonist, Husserl the realist, Husserl the idealist were one and the same person from the late 1890s until his death, something which is particularly well expressed in the volumes of his lecture courses published since the 1980s, which shed considerable light on his thought.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Plato