In some future post I will give several quotes from the Dan Zahavi’s book – Husserl’s Phenomenology, which connect to things I have said (some inspired by Husserl through that book). In that book Dan often gives references to Husserliana, so I thought I should say some things I learned about it.
Husserliana is a collection of books that are being published posthumously, based on 40,000 pages of manuscripts that Husserl left behind him (he died in 1938). Thirty-eight volumes have been published so far. Only a part of them are translated and published in English, seems that the last one is volume 12, published one month ago. (on the bad side prices of the works are pretty high, and with some of the hardcover editions with costs around 400$, I surely will consult a secondary literature for some time, or will try to figure out things by myself :) )
Husserl.net explains this big amount of writings left behind by Husserl in this way:
Husserl was known, especially later in life, to rely on assistants to organize his “daily meditations,” which he would throw haphazardly to his left and right. These would be gathered up, collated, and placed in binders for his later re-inspection and revision.
This brings to my mind picture of the Jeremy Brett, playing Sherlock Holmes in the TV series, throwing the pieces of papers around, and then I think of how Husserl could nicely use Sherlock Holmes in his examples of the intentionality towards non-existing objects and things. Anyway…
The manuscripts, those 40,000 pages were not safe in Germany, where because being Jewish Husserl was eliminated from the list of university professors, denied access to library (Heidegger, his former student, seems to have his part in this), and in general was more and more isolated in the last five years of his life.
Luckily for us, a Franciscan – Herman Leo Van Breda smuggled the manuscripts to Belgium, where first Husserl archive was founded, and the work on Husserliana has started.
By some coincidence, three days from now, on 27th of April, it will be exactly 68 years from Husserl’s death. So, I guess, this post can be small tribute to this big philosopher.
A brood comb 