The Context of the Phenomenological Movement (review)

266 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Herbert Spiegelberg. The Context of the Phenomenological Movement. Phaenomenologica , 8o. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. Pp. xvi + 239. $39.5 o. Through his book The Phenomenological Movement, first published in 196o, Herbert Spiegelberg has become known as the historian of phenomenology, the twentieth century philosophical movement founded by Edmund Husserl. The Context of the Phenomenological Movement is a companion volume to that work, especially to its recently published third, revised edition. ~ It is composed of fifteen studies on the comparative and historical background of the phenomenological movement which could not he accomodated within the plan of the main work. All of these studies have been previously published, but many of them appear here in revised or updated form, with some substantial additions included as supplements. Professor Spiegelberg traces the context of the phenomenological movement at many levels, ranging from the personal contacts between some philosophers to the connections between the ideas of others who scarcely knew of one another. For example, in the essay "What William James knew about Edmund Husserl: on the Credibility of Pitkin's Testimony," Professor Spiegelberg reports in detail the results of his investigations concerning William James's activities at the Fifth International Congress of Psychology in Rome in 19o5. The search was undertaken to discover what James might have learned about Husserl at the meeting, especially from Walter Pitkin. Like all of the information of this sort contained in the book, the data on James's contacts at the meeting serve to help answer an important historical question. Was James, as has been often alleged, responsible for the demise of Pitkin's project to publish an English translation of Husserl's Logische UntersuchungenU This question, in turn, concerns the important issue of the reasons for the poor and delayed reception which the phenomenological movement has been given in the English-speaking world. An example of how Professor Spiegelberg outlines the context of the phenomenological movement at the conceptual level is the essay entitled "Husserl's and Peirce's Phenomenologies: Coincidence or Interaction." Here Professor Spiegelberg explains some of the basic concepts and methods of Husserl's phenomenology and compares them with those of a discipline Charles Sanders Peirce designated as "phenomenology " (and later "phaneroscopy"). Despite many differences between the two phenomenologies, and the apparent independence of their development, there emerge some surprising parallels. Professor Spiegelberg suggests that there may have been a common root for them both, to be found in the nature of the problems with which both Peirce and Husserl struggled. This essay is probably one which Professor Spiegelberg had in mind when he wrote in his Preface that "I hope that this collection will reinforce the case for one of my favorite historical theses: that the Phenomenological Movement proper is actually a set of waves superimposed upon a much ' Herbert Spiegelberg, The PhenomenologicalMovement:A HistoricalIntroduction, 3rd revised and enlarged edition (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981). Edmund Husserl, LogischeUntersuchungen (Halle a. d. S.: Max Niemeyer, 19OO--1901 ). An English translation of this work did not appear until 597o. BOOK REVIEWS 267 vaster anti-reductionist and anti-constructionist groundswell that began in the nineteenth century" (p. xi). The studies just discussed come from different parts of the book, of which there are two: "Comparative Studies" and "Historical Explorations." Of the comparative studies, two stand out as the most philosophically stimulating. One of these, "Husserl 's Phenomenology and Sartre's Existentialism," which deals with the historical relations between phenomenology and exisentialism, contains a good critique t~f the phenomenological soundness of Sartre's famous discussion of the ego. The other essay, "Husserl and Pf~inder on the Phenomenological Reduction," raises some crucial questions about phenomenoiogical method. Professor Spiegelberg suggests abandoning Husserl's phenomenological reduction and proposes the phenomenological method of Alexander Pf~inder, one of Husserl's early associates, to replace it. While Husserl's method could probably be defended against the criticisms presented here, the essay helps to indicate the direction of the inquiry into the meaning and importance of the reduction which would be necessary for such a defence. The book contains two other comparative studies. One is a very informative investigation of the concepts of "intention" and "intentionality...