Introduction

pp. 1-9

in: Richard T. Murphy, Hume and Husserl, Berlin, Springer, 1980

Abstract

To become fully aware of the original and radical character of his transcendental phenomenology Edmund Husserl must be located within the historical tradition of Western philosophy. Although he was not a historian of philosophy, Husserl's historical reflections convinced him that phenomenology is the necessary culmination of a centuries-old endeavor and the solution to the contemporary crisis in European science and European humanity itself.¹ This teleological viewpoint requires the commentator to consider the tradition of Western philosophy from Husserl's own perspective.