The Paradoxical Self: Toward an Understanding of Our Contradictory Nature Book

I've been trying to track down some Husserl, but I was having trouble finding Logical Investigations for under $200. This contains a lot of Husserl's essays from throughout the development of his thought. It then promises to show how Heidegger, Merleu-Ponty and Sartre took phenomenology. The first few chapters (The Paris Lectures and various selections from Logical Investigations) have already given me more insight into Husserl's thought than anything else I've read.

3/20

I've finished just finished the section of this book on the Phenomenological Reduction. It is only after having read through the final essay in the chapter that I finally feel like I really have a grasp of what Phenomenology refers to. The text by Husserl in this section excitedly describes a transcendental ego, as something that is uncovered by his method. It is this ego that pertains to the objects of phenomenological objects (things in-themselves). Husserl goes on to use these concepts in his criticism of psychologism (a school of thought that asserts that what are objective truths are grounded in psychological laws).

I failed to really grasp his position, and his refutation of psycholgoism didn't particularly interest me. Yet, the final essay in the chapter points to the muddled nature of the "transcendental ego" and the author explains that what Husserl is trying to point to isn't really an ego at all, but rather just a specific perspective. It's a perspective (a way of looking at a situation, or a way of describing a situation)leads to us describing the formal rules that govern intentional acts. This, instead of describing the content of those acts.