Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the significance of Descartes for Husserl's phenomenology. ;Part A sets forth Husserl's interpretation of Descartes in abstraction from any immediate aims of Husserl's own program. Here Husserl's critique of Descartes is reconstructed according to the order of argument of the Meditations on First Philosophy in an attempt to show point by point what he found objectionable and why. ;Part B attempts to display how Husserl adapts various Cartesian motifs into his own "system" in texts from the Logical Investigations to the Crisis . The thematic threads used to tie this together are the theory of the phenomenological reduction, the interpretation of the ego cogito, the theory of evidence, and the idea of philosophy. ;Three broad claims are advanced. First, Descartes exercised an important influence on Husserl both earlier and later than is typically thought. Second, there is a sense of Cartesianism predicable of Husserl's phenomenology, but it bears so little resemblance to anything traditionally understood as the position of Descartes that one must constantly emphasize the phrase "Neo-Cartesianism" to indicate Husserl's radical transformation of the concepts of method, subjectivity, evidence, and science. Third, Husserl constantly re-thought the problems and results encountered by placing himself under the demands of Descartes' theoretical goals and ethos such that one can only very guardedly speak of the Neo-Cartesianism of phenomenology in a monolithic sense. Rather, the Cartesian heritage in Husserl is a living heritage which undergoes continual development and revision. ;With these claims the dissertation contravenes the thesis advanced by Ludwig Landgrebe concerning Husserl's "departure from Cartesianism." The polemic with Landgrebe turns on re-interpreting the theories of evidence, reflection, temporality, and what it means to call consciousness absolute. It is argued further that Husserl's approach to the problem of history need not stand in opposition to his so-called Cartesianism, but can indeed be accommodated as a moment along the Cartesian Way of phenomenology when this phrase is given its full extension. ;By way of conclusion, the question is raised whether Husserl's thought is infected by a sense of Cartesianism which he does not or cannot control. Focusing on the problem of truth and certainty, I try to give positive expression to Husserl's non-dogmatic orientation toward the highest demands of the scientific ideal