Abstract

This book was ten years in the making and it takes as its point of departure work on analytic philosophy and phenomenology done in the late sixties by the authors' professors at Stanford, Jaakko Hintikka and Dagfinn Føllesdal. Subsequent research, though, and notably J. N. Mohanty's work on Husserl and Frege have pointed to the difficulties unearthed as one examines assumptions about ties between Husserl's efforts and the work of Frege and his successors. Husserl was himself a master of the tradition in mathematics and philosophy that produced both him and Frege. He knew Frege's writings and he consciously diverged from them fashioning a distinct philosophical voice from the philosophical legacy they both shared. Any attempt now to interpret and improve Husserl in a Fregean way, adjusting his thought to the needs of contemporary analytic semantics, is misguided and cannot but produce distortions. Though McIntyre and Smith consistently show themselves aware of the criticisms to be levelled against their research, this work cannot, by its very nature, provide an adequate reply to critiques which would destroy the entire fabric of its argument.