''Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology'' (french: Méditations cartésiennes: Introduction à la phénoménologie) is a book by the philosopher
Edmund Husserl
, thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations)
, thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view
, thesis1_year = 1883
, thesis2_title ...
, based on four lectures he gave at the
Sorbonne, in the Amphithéatre Descartes on February 23 and 25, 1929. Over the next two years, he and his assistant
Eugen Fink
Eugen Fink (11 December 1905 – 25 July 1975) was a German philosopher.
Biography
Fink was born in 1905 as the son of a government official in Germany. He spent his first school years with an uncle who was a Catholic priest. Fink attended a gra ...
expanded and elaborated on the text of these lectures. These expanded lectures were first published in a 1931 French translation by Gabrielle Peiffer and
Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to ...
with advice from
Alexandre Koyré. They were published in German, along with the original ''Pariser Vortrage'', in 1950, and again in an English translation by Dorion Cairns in 1960, based on a typescript of the text (Typescript C) which Husserl had designated for Cairns in 1933.
The ''Cartesian Meditations'' were never published in German during Husserl's lifetime, a fact which has led some commentators to conclude that Husserl had become dissatisfied with the work in relation to its aim, namely an introduction to transcendental
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
. The text introduces the main features of Husserl's mature transcendental phenomenology, including (not exhaustively) the transcendental reduction, the
epoché
Epoché ( ἐποχή ''epokhē'', "cessation") is an ancient Greek term. In Hellenistic philosophy it is a technical term typically translated as "suspension of judgment" but also as "withholding of assent". In the modern philosophy of Phenomeno ...
, static and genetic phenomenology,
eidetic reduction, and eidetic phenomenology. In the Fourth Meditation, Husserl argues that transcendental phenomenology is nothing other than
transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that dese ...
.
The name ''Cartesian Meditations'' refers to
René Descartes' ''
Meditations on First Philosophy.'' Thus Husserl wrote:
Contents
The work is divided into five "meditations" of varying length, whose contents are as follows:
#First Meditation: The Way to the Transcendental Ego
#Second Meditation: The Field of Transcendental Experience
#Third Meditation: Constitutional Problems
#Fourth Meditation: Constitutional Problems Pertaining to the Transcendental Ego Itself
#Fifth Meditation: Transcendental Being as Monadological Intersubjectivity
Editions
* ''Meditations Cartesiennes: Introduction à la phenomenologie''. 1931. Gabrielle Peiffer and Emmanuel Levinas, trans. Paris: Armand Collin.
* ''Meditations Cartesiennes: Introduction à la phenomenologie''. 1947. Gabrielle Peiffer and Emmanuel Levinas, trans. Paris: Vrin.
*
Cartesian Meditations'' 1960. Dorion Cairns, trans. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
References
* Dermot Moran, Rodney K. B. Parker (eds.). 2016. ''Studia Phaenomenologica: Vol. XV / 2015