In this first book-length study of the topic, Robert C. Scharff offers a detailed analysis of the young Heideggers interpretation of Diltheys hermeneutics of historical life and Husserls transcendental phenomenology. He argues that it is Heideggers prior reading of Dilthey that grounds his critical appropriation of Husserls phenomenology. He shows that in Heideggers early lecture courses, a possible phenomenology is presented as a genuine alternative with the modern philosophies of consciousness to which Husserls actual phenomenology is still too closely tied. All of these philosophies tend to overestimate the degree to which we can achieve intellectual independence from our surroundings and inheritance. In response, Heidegger explains why becoming phenomenological is always a possibility; butbeing a phenomenologist is not. Scharff concludes that this discussion of the young Heidegger, Husserl, and Dilthey leads to the question of our own current need for a phenomenological philosophythat is, for a philosophy that avoids technique-happiness, that at least sometimes thinks with a self-awareness that takes no theoretical distance from life, and that speaks in a language that is not yet selectively representational.

Robert C. Scharff is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire and Executive Director of ITERATA, a non-profit institute for the study of interdisciplinarity in science, industry, and higher education. He is author of How History Matters to Philosophy (2015), Comte After Positivism (2002), and numerous papers on 19th and 20th century positivism, postpositivism, and continental philosophy; co-editor (with Val Dusek) of The Philosophy of Technology (2003, 2014); and former editor of Continental Philosophy Review (19942005).

Preface / Acknowledgments / Note on citations / Introduction / 1. Preparing to Be Phenomenological /Part I / 2. From Dilthey to Heidegger: Recasting the Erklären-Verstehen Debate / 3. Heideggers Destructive Retrieval of Diltheys Standpoint of Life /Part II / 4. From Dilthey to Husserl / 5. Heideggers Diltheyian Retrieval of Husserls Two Sides /Part III / 6. Continuously Becoming Phenomenological / References / Index