A Tale of Two Schisms: Heidegger’s Critique of Husserl’s Move into Transcendental Idealism

Abstract

The history of the early phenomenological movement involves a tale of two schisms. The Great Phenomenological Schism originated between 1905 and 1913, as many of his contemporaries, for example, Pfänder, Scheler, Reinach, Stein, and Ingarden, rejected Husserl’s transformation of phenomenology from the descriptive psychology of his Logical Investigations (1900/19011) into the transcendental idealism of his Ideas I (1913). The Phenomenological-Existential Schism started between 1927 and 1933, as with Being and Time (1927) Heidegger moved away from Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of consciousness toward an ontological analytic of existence. Yet these schisms were not unrelated developments. Closely following the documentary evidence to determine the exemplary nature of Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s move into transcendental idealism, this essay establishes the inextricable linkage between the Great Phenomenological Schism and the Phenomenological-Existential Schism.