Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology

This book is an outstanding presentation of Husserl's philosophy. The book draws upon important texts that are not readily available to English-speaking readers (e.g., the Husserls' lectures in Amsterdam and Paris), and it provides a careful analysis of how Husserl's ideas evolved over time. It provides a lucid account of the relation between phenomenological psychology and transcendental phenomenology. Chapter Seven ("The Transcendental Problem: Its Origin and Its Quasi-Solution by Psychologism") describes the origins of the concept of the transcendental and presents an account of how that concept evolved in the thought of Kant and Husserl. That chapter also discusses the evolution of Descarte's concept of the cogito. Dr. Kockelmans' understanding of Husserl's thought and of Husserl's importance to the history of philosophy is impeccable. He is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Penn State. I had the good fortune of attending quite a few of his classes and seminars in the 1970s. He is a man of deep and abiding compassion. He was a superb teacher who invariably presented his subject with elegance, grace, critical exactitude, transparent clarity, and sublime intellectual humility. This book is a fine book, and I highly recommended it to anyone with an interest Husserl, phenomenology, and transcendental idealism.