Journal of the History of Philosophy

404 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY very helpful in piecing together plausible interpretations of difficult Kantian doctrines. If for no other reason than this, Zweig's volume is of genuine philosophical value. STEPHEN A. ERm~SO~ Pomona College The Aims o] Phenomenology: The Motives, Methods, and Impact o] Husserl's Thought. By Marvin Farber. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966.Pp. x + 240. $225) Marvin Farber intends his book to be a critical introduction to phenomenology. Since phenomenology for Farber is in large measure identifiable with the development of Husserl 's thought, the book deals primarily with Husserl. Much of the material has been in print before. This fact in no way detracts from the book's significance, however. In this volume the material is brought together in a manner which sheds light on a number of problems surrounding the notion of phenomenology as a philosophical method. Exposition and criticism are judiciously combined. Phenomenology is given a fair if Husserlianly oriented hearing, while at the same time informed criticisms of the position are offered-more often than not in the service of naturalism, a naturalism not incompatible with, but complementary to phenomenological philosophy. After a description of the book's major contents, I shall consider briefly a few of the problems Farber seeks to clarify. The book is composed of nine chapters. In the first Farber describes the general development of Husserl's thought. Unlike most commentators Farber distinguishes four rather than three phases of Husserl's philosophical development. According to Farber, Husserl's thought develops along the following lines. In his first phase Husserl's concern is with basic problems in mathematics. Along with this concern goes an interest in working out a psychological approach to problems in the philosophy of logic. In the second phase Husserl develops his phenomenology, a pheuomenology which Husserl holds to be neither idealistic nor realistic and which he believes to be without any presuppositions whatsoever. The third phase is the one in which Husserl makes his "transcendental" turn, reducing his field of investigation to the realm of pure consciousness. Finally Husserl's phenomenology becomes a philosophy of the transcendental "constitution" of entities, idealistic in intent and universal in scope. In characterizing Husserl's philosophical development in this way, Farber's account differs significantly from a number of American phenomenologists' accounts of Husserrs "later" thought. Whereas Farber stresses the idealistic tendencies in this thought, a number of Husserl's American interpreters insist upon a realistic interpretation of Husserl's doctrines, focusing their attention on Husserl's conception of the Lebenswelt as a means of justifying their position. In the second chapter of Farber's work, Farber deals with the concept of a presupposition and examines the phenomenological ideal of freedom from presuppositions. He distinguishes various senses of "assumption" and "presupposition" and suggests ways in which phenomenological philosophy can and can not be without presuppositions. The third chapter deals with phenomenology as a method. In this chapter Farber deals with the concepts of essence, evidence, reduction, and constitution, the latter concepts being particularly crucial to the development of the transcendental and idealistic dimensions of Husserl's thought. In the fourth chapter Farber concerns himself with the concept of certainty as found in Descartes and in Husserl. Here Farber takes Husserl to task for stressing too much the subjectivizing tendencies inherent in Cartesian methodological doubt. In short Farber criticizes the idealistic tendencies of Husserl's quest for certainty, tendencies inherent in Hnsserl's conception of that which is "outside of me." Transcendence for Husserl, Farber claims, is a contribution of consciousness--what might be termed a constitutive construct of the transcendental operations of consciousness. Farber points out the philosophical weaknesses of this position. Deriving the external and natural from the internal and mental is at best a dubious philosophical undertaking. Farber goes on from this criticism to a more extended discussion of the concepts of transcendence and immanence. In the fifth chapter Farber deals with questions concerning the limits of pure reflection and examines further the notion of a phenomenological description. Here as earlier in the book BOOK REVIEWS 405 Farber argues against the self-snfficiency of pure phenomenology, phenomenology restricted to the domain of pure consciousness, claiming in effect...