Phenomenological ideas in Latvia

Kurt Stavenhagen and Theodor Celms on Husserl's transcendental phenomenology

Juris Rozenvalds

pp. 67-82

in: Olav K. Wiegand, Robert J. Dostal, Lester Embree, Joseph Kockelmans, Mohanty (eds), Phenomenology on Kant, German idealism, hermeneutics and logic, Berlin, Springer, 2000

Abstract

It is commonly known that after the publication of Husserl's Logical Investigations a great number of students from different countries came to Göttingen and, after 1916, to Freiburg to study phenomenology with Husserl. Among them were students from the Baltic states. The best-known of them, Avon Gurwitsch and Emmanuel Levinas, left their native country Lithuania to study and never came back. Their subsequent philosophical careers were connected with the United States and France, respectively. Quite different is the case of Husserl's students from Latvia. Unlike E. Levinas and A. Gurwitsch, all of them returned to Latvia after their studies in Göttingen and Freiburg. Therefore it is possible to speak about a particular branch of phenomenology in Latvia, which, on the one hand, was closely connected with tendencies and discussions within the phenomenological movement, and, on the other hand, reflected specific features of the social and cultural life in Latvia.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Levinas Emmanuel

Stavenhagen Kurt

Celms Theodor