Zahavi, Dan, Husserl's legacy

John Drummond(Fordham University)

pp. 265-273

Review of:

Zahavi Dan, Husserl's legacy: Phenomenology, metaphysics, and transcendental philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017.

Over the past twenty-five years, Dan Zahavi has established himself as a foremost interpreter of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology and a leading contributor to the development of contemporary phenomenology. He is renowned for showing that phenomenology is a viable and valuable alternative for addressing contemporary controversies in the philosophy of mind, the cognitive sciences, and social ontology and epistemology. Both facets of his work are on display in Husserl’s Legacy. Zahavi addresses the nature and significance of Husserl’s transcendental idealism and aims “to clarify Husserl’s position and to suggest ways in which to make sense of various central claims of his” (p. 3). His aim is neither to provide a full-throated defense of a phenomenological transcendental idealism nor to construct knockdown arguments against competing philosophical positions. He purports instead to offer a “proof-is-in-the-pudding” demonstration of transcendental idealism’s continuing relevance for...