Abstract

As the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl occupies a special place in the development of hermeneutics. He provided many of the concepts hermeneutics later used. The special relation between Husserl and hermeneutics explains why his connections to the movement have to do with how his views have been “interpreted”. Husserl took the discovery of the correlation between consciousness and object to be the breakthrough performed by his phenomenology. Such a correlation avoids the traditional problem of how an external object enters into consciousness or how a mental component (consciousness) can relate to a physical matter (object). Through Husserl's fundamental insights, which gave hermeneutics the means to find its own philosophical foundation and self‐justification, and through his complex conceptual apparatus, philosophical hermeneutics could move beyond a reflection on interpretation and become a full‐fledged discipline that sees human existence as anchored in understanding and interpretation.