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EUGEN FINK
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY OF EDMUND HUSSERL AND CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM (PART I)

Abstract
The famous article by E.Fink, published at the end of 1933 in the „Kant-Studien“, is a response to the critique of phenomenological philosophy by the “criticists”, i. e. by contemporary critical philosophers, the neo-Kantians R.Zocher and F.Kreis. In the first half of the article, Fink presents in detail their insinuations against the “Logical Investigations”, against the phenomenological methodology presented in “Ideas I” and, finally, against the idea of a “common origin” of the critical and phenomenological versions of transcendental philosophy. Fink shows that the miunderstandings of the criticists are rooted in the incorrect interpretation of the basic phenomenological concepts. In part, Fink sees the reason of such a misunderstanding in the premises of criticists, and in part in the insufficiently clear presentation of the basic ideas of phenomenology. In the second half of the article, Fink provides an explanation and interpretation of the phenomenological reduction, transcendental subjectivity, the phenomenological concept of the world and the “Absolute”. He posits the problem of the origin of the world as the main problem of phenomenology. The article was published with a preface by E.Husserl, who by that time had no right to publish his works. Husserl expresses complete agreement with Fink’s exposition of phenomenology. Nevertheless, the interpretation of phenomenology in this article is mostly Fink’s original interpretation.

Keywords
E.Fink, E.Husserl, phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, transcendental philosophy, criticism, phenomenological reduction, world.

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