Philosophy as an exercise in exaggeration

the role of circularity in Husserl's criticism of logical psychologism

Vedran Grahovac

pp. 57-94

in: Iulian Apostolescu (ed), The subject(s) of phenomenology, Berlin, Springer, 2020

Abstract

I propose in this text that Husserl's response to his contemporaries, critics and immediate predecessors in Logical Investigations consists in the development of circular strategy. Husserl does not challenge psychologsim, empiricism or neo-Kantianism by immediately assuming a position of epistemological primacy over these philosophies. To the contrary, Husserl philosophically challenges these positions by enacting a circularity that already underlies them. Husserl's critical distance from these theories implies a methodological proximity which enables him to advance his phenomenological project with constant backward reference to the theories he challenges. Husserl's circular philosophy transforms the themes it investigates and the theories it criticizes, transforming itself in that process.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Kant Immanuel