Husserl's phenomenology and language as calculus

pp. 11-134

in: Martin Kusch, Language as calculus vs. language as universal medium, Berlin, Springer, 1989

Abstract

In this part of my study, I shall try to show that the idea of language as a re-interpretable sign-system, i.e., as a calculus, is central to Husserl's philosophy throughout its different stages.¹ It is only later, in the third main part of this book, that we shall be able to see how radically this conception differs from that of Husserl's most gifted student, Martin Heidegger. Even in the present part, however, I shall not abstain from all comparisons between Husserl's conception of language as calculus and the notion of language or logic as a universal medium. Occasionally, Husserl's views will be compared with those of the "grandfather of analytical philosophy", Gottlob Frege.² This procedure seems a natural one for two reasons. On the one hand, comparisons between Husserl and Frege have become common in Husserl research ever since Dagfinn Føllesdal published his little classic Husserl und Frege in 1958.³ On the other hand, recent Frege scholarship has provided a wealth of results to the effect that Frege's belief in the universality of language is one of the keys to his entire logical enterprise.⁴