School Notes

Date posted:   Oct 06, 2020

Dermot Moran’s essay ‘Husserl and the Greeks’ published in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology,

Photo of Dermot Moran’s essay for the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, published online in advance of the print edition.

Moran documents Husserl’s growing interest in the foundational character of Greek philosophy for Western culture and shows what is unique about Husserl’s appropriation of certain Greek thinkers and concepts. Specifically, he explains Husserl’s idiosyncratic appropriation of key Greek terms as original building blocks to articulate his own intuitive insights and review critically Husserl’s original appropriation of the history of Greek philosophy as a way of situating his transcendental phenomenology within the Western (“European”) intellectual tradition. Husserl adopted a consistent view of Greek philosophy throughout his life but deepened his engagement in later years. Initially little interested in the history of philosophy as such, he came to see the “breakthrough” into the theoretical attitude as decisive for the development of Western culture. The Skeptics’ epoché is revitalized by Husserl as a permanent way of challenging the dogmatic naivete of life in the natural attitude, motivating the transformation to theoria.‘Husserl and the Greeks’: JBSP (Originally published online: 30 September 2020).