Postcard from Edmund Husserl written 19.08.1932

Author Edmund Husserl

Category foreign researchers, incoming correspondence

Archive The Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences

Date of creation 19.08.1932

Reference code in archive Biblioteka PAU

Resource type postcard

Subject matter academic issues, personal issues

Field phenomenology, philosophy

Tags #academic publications, #Alfred Schütz, #Badenweiler, #Cartesian Meditations, #constitutive phenomenology, #Edmund Husserl, #exhaustion, #Formal and Transcendental Logic, #freedom, #french translation #academic work, #holidays, #idealism, #intentional analyses, #phenomenology, #Szwarzwald, #transcendental phenomenology, #transcendental reduction, #translations, #vacation, #Yearbook

Badenweiler, 19.VIII.32

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your letter and the exciting news. Semper idem! The old faithful friend. Well, we are not less faithful. My wife and I have been staying at the lovely seaside resort of Badenweiler since the fourth of this month. Tomorrow, we will be driving to Höchenschwand (at 1,000 m altitude in the Black Forest), since it is too hot for us where we are currently at. I have been completely exhausted due to the never ending scientific meetings of the last months. Hopefully, one month of relaxation will help me regain my strength. I was very pleased to hear about you studying the F[ormal] and Tr[anscendental] Logic. Unfortunately, the fifth meditation is still missing, and without it, meditations I to IV and the meaning of the entire Med[itations] and finally, the totally new “Idealism” are not comprehensible! There is no real philosophizing, except on the basis of tr[anscendental] reduction and your “idealism”; no ph[ilosophical] arguments that can make sense on their o[wn] – that I am certain of. You too, will be certain of this, once you take some time for reflection (while taking a step back from your usual philosophy), but it has to be of the radical type. Only tr[anscendental] red[uction] allows for true radicalism, true freedom. Please try to understand why I keep telling you that you have not understood the deeper meaning of const[itutive] ph[enomenology] and why this is not meant as a reproach, as others who are of the old school failed to understand. It is not a lack of concr[ete] investigations. In this regard, you are even more advanced than most. However, all int[entional] analyses are ambiguous (in the first stage of ph[enomenology]). – A Viennese “student” (Schütz) promised to make some copies of the G[erman] original text of the Medit[ations] for me. I asked him for copies, in part for my friends in Strasbourg and Vienna, and in part and especially for you.68 Unfortunately, the French translation is difficult to comprehend. I am hoping to be able to send you a German copy in about four weeks. – I continued important “deep investigations” and only now I am beginning to work on a replacement for the Medit[ations], since the old form is insufficient for the German audience.69 Thank you for the picture. What fine boys; may they become completely free people.

I will of course be glad to include your work in the Yearbook, if you wish, but the question is whether you would still want me to include it about six months after you have further studied my intentions? Yours sincerely,

E. Husserl

Please send our regards to your wife!