Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Conference | Paper

Husserl and Heidegger on Galileo and the crisis of the sciences

Tim Miechels

Tuesday 13 September 2022

15:30 - 16:15

Palazzo del Capitanio-Aula AIS 2

The sciences are in a state of crisis. Due to factors like hyperspecialization and an all too naive and uncritical faith in their own method, the sciences have lost sight of their initial goal. The idea that sciences are in a state of crisis can of course famously be found in Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences. What is less well-known, however, is that Martin Heidegger also discusses and analyzes a crisis of the sciences in his 1928/1929 course Einleitung in die Philosophie. There are interesting similarities between the nature of the crisis the two thinkers observe, but key differences when it comes to the relation between science and philosophy and the question of whether or not the crisis can be resolved. The aim of my talk will be to provide a thorough comparative analysis of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s accounts of the crisis, and what this means for their ideas concerning the relation between science and philosophy.