Problems of the value of nature in phenomenological perspective or what to do about snakes in the grass

Lester Embree

pp. 49-61

in: Lester Embree (ed), Phenomenology of values and valuing, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

The perspective of this essay is phenomenological, by which is intended the original mature Husserlian or constitutive and not the existential, hermeneutical, or realistic forms of phenomenology that have also arisen. There are two objectionable aspects to Husserlian phenomenology today. Firstly, the texts of Husserl and his closer followers are difficult to comprehend, even in translation, and this explains in part why so much that considers itself "phenomenological" is actually no more than the interpretation of phenomenological texts by methods that are not especially phenomenological. This is not even good hermeneutics, which is interpretation and critique, for it does not reach the phase of critique, which can be phenomenological. In this respect, then, phenomenology needs to get beyond mere scholarship and into attempts to verify, correct, and extend earlier descriptions.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund