Edmund Husserl, Philosophy of Arithmetic, translated by Dallas Willard: Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003 (Series Edmund Husserl Collected Works, Vol. X), lxiv + 513 pp., ISBN 1-4020-1546-1 (hard copy); ISBN 1-4020-1603-4 (paperback)

Husserl Stud (2008) 24:5358

DOI 10.1007/s10743-007-9025-z

BOOK REVIEW

Edmund Husserl, Philosophy of Arithmetic, translated by Dallas Willard

Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003 (Series Edmund Husserl Collected Works, Vol. X), lxiv + 513 pp., ISBN 1-4020-1546-1 (hard copy); ISBN 1-4020-1603-4 (paperback)

Carlo Ierna

Published online: 17 August 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

This volume contains an English translation of Edmund Husserls rst major work, the Philosophie der Arithmetik, (Husserl 1891). As a translation of Husserliana XII (Husserl 1970), it also includes the rst chapter of Husserls Habilitationsschrift (ber den Begriff der Zahl) (Husserl 1887) and various supplementary texts written between 1887 and 1901. This translation is the crowning achievement of Dallas Willards monumental research into Husserls early philosophy (Husserl 1984) and should be seen as a companion to volume V of the Husserliana: Collected Works series (Husserl 1994b), which already contained selected translations from Hua XII. As Willard remarks on the inner cover of the volume, it is a window on a period of rich and illuminating philosophical activity, to which I wholeheartedly agree. Willards two volumes of translations open this window on the beginnings of Husserls philosophy for the English-speaking world. This earliest period of Husserls philosophy has often been unjustly ignored and Willard provides the English reader with an excellent starting point. Husserls rst steps into phenomenology and the philosophy of logic and mathematics contain many promising seeds that will ower later on, in the Logische Untersuchungen and beyond.

Indeed, Willards Introduction presents a ne overview and summary of the texts contained in the volume, giving a basic analysis of the fundamental topics and problems, and picking out some specic points of interest. The young Husserl tries to combine the legacy of the mathematician Carl Weierstrass, his promoter at Berlin, and the philosopherpsychologist Franz Brentano, to which the book is dedicated, striving to give a philosophicalpsychological account of the arithmetisation of higher mathematical analysis. According to Weierstrass calculating is based on counting

C. Ierna (B)

Husserl-Archief, Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, Leuven 3000, Belgiume-mail: [e-mail]

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54 Husserl Stud (2008) 24:5358

and elementary numbers (Anzahlen) are given by enumeration. Husserls goal is to provide a foundation for mathematics through an analysis of the psychological origin and content of...