Change of Perspectives: Constitution of a Husserl Image

Abstract

“To be forever imperfect is essential to the unbreakable correlation of ‘thing’ and thing-appearance” (Husserl Ideas I, § 44; Husserliana III, 100 f.). This insight of Husserl is in a heightened sense true of the correlation between ‘person’ and ‘person-appearance.’ How much more does it apply to a personality such as Husserl’s. Not all of these appearances are equally characteristic. If the following reminiscences of my encounters with Husserl can claim more than personal meaning, this cannot be based on the extent and intensity of these contacts. My reflections will present merely a series of close and distant perspectives in time and space which are meant as testimonies to the inexhaustible multidimensionality of Husserl’s personality, as these perspectives involve varying “intentions,” fulfillments, disappointments, and revisions. As such they may show a certain typicality.

A German version of this article appeared in Edmund Husserl: 1859–1959, Phaenomenologica 4 (1959) pp. 56–63.