How to Read the Logical Investigations?: About Husserl's Guide for the Reader and a Rediscovered Typescript of It

One of the many remarkable documents to be found in the papers of Winthrop Bell is a typewritten copy and transcription of two fragmentary drafts, one in longhand, the other in shorthand, for a preface to the second edition of the Logical Investigations that Husserl conceived in late summer 1913. The typescript "Entwurf zur Einführung der zweiten Bearbeitung der Logischen Untersuchungen" was produced in summer 1924 by Ludwig Landgrebe, who was Husserl's research assistant at the time.¹ Eugen Fink, who became Husserl's assistant in 1928, published the text of Landgrebe's typescript after Husserl's death in 1939 in two parts in the first two issues of the Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, under the title "Entwurf einer 'Vorrede' zu den 'Logischen Untersuchungen.'"²

The original Husserlian manuscripts were published only recently in 2002 in the Husserliana, the critical edition of Husserl's works. At the time of the critical edition of the original drafts, it was known from an inscription on one of the manuscripts that Landgrebe had produced a typescript of the drafts. This typescript, however, seemed to have been lost. It was also known through the pagination in the drafts from the hand of Edith Stein, who preceded Landgrebe as Husserl's assistant, that she had already occupied herself with the drafts. It was probably she who arranged the fragmentary texts into the unified text as it is found in the typescript. The division into paragraphs and the titles of the paragraphs in the published text are certainly from Fink, since the text of the typescript is not yet subdivided into paragraphs.

The typescript of Landgrebe that has recently been discovered in the Bell papers contains a number of handwritten insertions and other textual revisions with pencil and ink by Husserl. The text published by Fink in 1939, however, does not take into account these revisions. Since it is unlikely that he just ignored them, he must have based his publication on another unrevised copy.³

Unfortunately, no sources have yet been found that tell us precisely when, how, and to what purpose Winthrop Bell received the annotated typescript. It seems likely that Husserl himself sent the typescript to Bell shortly after Landgrebe had produced it in 1924. A long letter by Husserl to Bell from November 1925, though, does not mention the sending of the typescript. If Husserl himself sent the typescript to Bell, to what purpose? Did he ask Bell for his comments on the text?

The major task Husserl assigned to his research assistants was the preparation of his stenographic manuscripts for publication. This involved not only the transcription of the manuscripts but also their arrangement into a coherent and unified text. The fact that Husserl had Landgrebe produce a typescript of the drafts that Stein had probably already unified, and that he then revised, would seem to indicate that he still intended to publish the text in 1924. Certain features of the text, however, make this somewhat doubtful. First, the text of the typescript still expresses the original purpose of the drafts to compose a preface to the second edition of the Logical Investigations. But that second edition had been published with the exception of Logical Investigation VI in 1913, with the second edition of investigation VI finally having been published in 1921. Second, the text also preserves the rather disdainful remarks on Meinong and his theory of objects (Gegenstandstheorie), as well as the sarcastic polemics with Wundt where Husserl expresses his frustration and anger about the denial of the originality of his insights and about the crude misinterpretation of his work in the original reception of the Logical Investigations. It is hard to imagine that Husserl in 1924 would still feel the need to denounce Meinong and ridicule Wundt in such an aggressive tone.

Landgrebe's typescript in the Bell papers closes an important gap in the textual documentation and history of how Husserl's original drafts for a preface to the second edition of the Logical Investigations were transformed into the text...