Abstract

In its aim to radicalize the basis of objectivity, Husserl's phenomenological inquiries resemble the "new science" of Vico. But Husserl's renewal of that aim is animated by a peculiarly modern sense of antidogmatism and rigor, and its special problem is to criticize knowledge by starting with the existential a priori of the life-world. The antidogmatism of phenomenology is seen to be a consequence of its antisubjectivism. Semerari's interpretation of Husserl is provocative but sketchy; his appreciations and criticisms of Kant, several analytically-oriented thinkers, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and Heidegger are very sharp, but usually left as ideas for the reader to test and work out.--C. D.