Abstract

Husserl’s legacy of research manuscripts has been revered as a resource containing the deepest insights of his later work and criticized because such manuscripts present work in progress rather than completed “results.” I suggest that these materials are far more than fragments calling for careful interpretation; instead, they belong to a different genre and should be taken up in an attitude of research directed toward working out unsolved problems rather than in an attitude focused on interpreting pregiven texts. After sketching some elements of the research practice this entails, I review some of the ways in which Husserl’s research results have been appropriated and emphasize the need for further phenomenological investigation in the spirit of the “rigorous science” Husserl envisioned