3 - The ghosts of Brentano

Summary

Die Leichname werden wieder lebendig und grinsen uns hohnlächelnd an.

— Husserl

A compelling beginning

The ITC lectures are an exception among Husserl's abundant, yet diffuse writings on time-consciousness. Whereas other writings are fragmentary and/or assume familiarity with earlier gains in Husserl's investigations, with individual manuscripts often continuing in media res without clear indication of orientation or trajectory, the ITC lectures – in the form of their 1928 publication – present a structured exploration of “the hidden world of time-consciousness, so rich in mystery” that fully set into motion “the most difficult of all phenomenological problems” (Hua X, 276 [286]). In preparing these lectures for publication as per Husserl's instructions, Edith Stein deliberately attempted to retain the original path of thinking in the lecture-course while also accommodating Husserl's fastidious reworking of his seminal insights after 1905. Despite her efforts, the patchwork character of these reconstructed lectures generates a number of difficulties for grasping Husserl's argument, in both its substance and its development. The 1928 edition is composed of textual material – from the original lecture manuscripts, subsequent research manuscripts, and other lecture courses – spanning the critical years during which the entire phenomenological enterprise, and especially the investigations of time-consciousness, underwent significant transformation. Not surprisingly, the progress of Husserl's treatment of time-consciousness during these decisive years is obscured by the 1928 edition's indiscriminate juxtaposition of different stages in Husserl's thinking between 1904 and 1911.