Husserl and Whitehead on the concrete

pp. 90-104

in: Frederick Kersten, Richard Zaner (eds), Phenomenology: Continuation and Criticism, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1973

Abstract

My personal relation to Husserl is perhaps a bit unusual. I was in Freiburg for more than a year beginning in November, 1923. I read a lot of Husserl, participated in his seminar, heard him give some lectures, and had a few discussions with him. He interested but did not satisfy me. I did not share his confidence that he could divest himself of theories and read off the exact traits of the given; particularly since, as I told him, I was fairly confident of some truths about the given which he seemed to have badly missed. Then too I was learning about a number of things at that time from Richard Kroner, Jonas Cohn, Oscar Becker, Julius Ebbinghaus, and the young Heidegger starting his extraordinary career. It was indeed a brilliant department, and I presume much of the credit for this should go to Husserl himself.