Abstract

The dissertation considers the methodological and thematic correspondences in Isaac Newton's Principia and Albert Einstein's "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," from a Husserlian point of view. It proposes to recover from an analysis of their work an account of the operative method of Newton and Einstein, so as to determine the thematic foundations which make possible their scientific projects. These themata are then examined for their relevance to a Husserlian phenomenology of the intentional structure of scientific rationality. Towards this end, the dissertation considers Husserl's Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, for its analysis of the problematic relationship between experience and formalization in science. The dissertation culminates in an analysis of Husserl's Formal and Transcendental Logic, wherein I translate Husserl's account of formal logic and formal mathematics into a viable account of the formal and experiential intentionality in the scientific method. The result of this study is a phenomenological account of science which explains the continuity between the concrete life-world and abstract, formal structures, such that the activity of the scientist is explained by means of intentional shifts. According to this new interpretation, the thematic convictions of the scientist provide operational justification for the scientific method, within the confines of the natural attitude, but are ultimately founded in the intentional structure of knowing, as articulated in Husserlian phenomenology